Wally vs. DAS-R:
Wally was my old computer controlled robot who had an unfortunate accident down a flight of stairs.  Wally has sort of died, sad to say.  However, Wally is lucky because he's a robot and I'm bringing him back as DAS-R.  DAS-R stands for Defensive, Artificially intelligent, Security-Robot.  DAS-R will be incorporating a whole new designs philosophy of design to create robots for military applications.  DAS-R will be armored to an extent to prevent damage from falls, collisions and weapons such as baseball bats.  DAS-R's weapons will include a club for hitting back, a stun gun, a laser tag gun for simulation of gun fights and a small cutting saw for cutting through chains and locks.  

The smaller things I develop for DAS-R or in the process of working on DAS-R I will share here with everyone on the net, as I have been up to this point.  However, some of things I might start leaving out because I'd like to turn DAS-R into a marketable robot in the future.  This is something I take seriously, although the humor used through out this site might suggest otherwise.  

Some might ask, WHY make an armed military robotic solder?  To answer that I point to the resent conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.  The United States military forces in conjunction with the United Nations feel obligated to police certain regional conflicts that do or could conceivably interfere with our greater notational security concerns, the security of our allies and or the protection of basic human rights.   In our current social and political structure it is not desirable to lose human lives in the process of helping other countries resolve their conflicts.  In most cases that means sending in inadequate force numbers into combat situations which are changing minute by minute, such as in Bosnia.  Or it results in hold back ground forces while waging an air war, such as in Kosovo.  

In Kosovo small numbers of enemy forces were able to effectively drive out a largely unarmed and defenseless population of ethnic Albanians.   The Albanians were run out because they had no army to protect them.  While air strikes were causing damage to enemy military infrastructure and economy, the real threat to the ethnic Albanians were the solders running them out.  Those solders were not largely hurt because it's hard to bomb small groups of people hiding in builds and forests with fast moving jets.  The result were countless innocent people forcefully made to leave their homes and country.   They were allowed to return after the air war was over and enemy forces left the Kosovo region.   

But what I ask is could it have been done better?  If ground forces had been sent into the Kosovo conflict they would have assuredly suffered casualties and perhaps would have caused a stalemate or even a prolonged and expanded war.  But imagine for a moment it were possible to air drop platoons of robot solders.  Each platoon would be comprised of about 20 robots.  Each robot would have a rugged drive system, much like a 4X4 personal ATV's.  In fact that is what my DAS-R will eventually use for a drive train.  

Robots could run on a combination of gasoline/battery/solar power.  Each robot would have a fully function arm to pick weapons up off the ground or to open gates and doors.  Robots would also have a gun type arm and tear gas launcher.  Robots would be linked to a mobile remote command center for command instructions.  Robots would have counter threat A.I. to automatically carry out preprogrammed maneuvers.  Target destination and lethal force reaction commands would be issued only by human controllers.  When you break it down DAS-R would be a smart mobile gun station in many ways.  

The benefit of  DAS-R systems would be in having a truly expendable expeditionary force.  In Kosovo platoons of robots could have covered open areas, creating a line to which enemy forces could not progress un-harassed.  Platoons could have formed firing squads which could support one another with weapons fire.  A defensive posture such as this would have forced the enemy to come out of hiding in large numbers to counter such a threat if enemy forces wished to proceed with the forced removal of the ethnic Albanians.   Once the enemy forces were out in the open standard air craft could have been employed to destroy enemy targets.  This is a small part of my vision for DAS-R.  This is why I am currently working to create such a weapon system, so that one day The United States military might have a new tool to fight wars with.  A tool that could save lives.  This is what I want to create and this is what all my robotics work and projects will be in the pursuit of from this point forward.