The Pentagon’s research arm Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has decided to invest in Avatars.
Rather like in the James Cameron movie this consists of mechanical androids who will take the place of humans on the battleground. The project titled ‘Avatar’ has already received $7 million funding from the $2.8 billion DARPA budget.
In the movie the humans use brain machines to interface and control giant genetically engineered human-alien hybrids. The research agency said that the Avatar program would develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier's surrogate.
These robots will be able to do soldier roles like room clearing, sentry control and combat casualty recovery. They will do the dirty work of war at the bidding of their human partner. It may reek of science fiction right now, but it may be closer to reality than you imagine.
DARPA’s experimentation with robotics has already led to AlphaDog, a four legged giant that is meant to lug combat gear for soldiers like a pack mule. The Petman is another robotic example of a headless humanoid which is designed to mimic the soldier’s physiology.
DARPA announced more than one project, and this included the Fixed Wireless at a Distance program. This hopes to solve the problem of stationary infrastructure designed specifically to overcome the challenge inherent with cell communication in remote areas.