War & Joystick

Game Controllers Driving Drones, Nukes

War really is getting more like a video game, as hardware and software from the gaming industry is increasingly being adopted for military use. The latest sign of this appeared at the Farnborough air show this week, where arms-maker Raytheon showed off its new Universal Control System for robotic aicraft. It's based on the same technology that drives Halo and Splinter Cell.

The Universal Control System is said to combine 'best-of-breed technologies from the gaming industry' with Raytheon know-how to create an interface which will lead to a significant reduction in accidents. Raytheon claim the system could save $500 million over ten years.

Improving the interface with techniques from video games can help ground robots too. New Scientist reported on how a Wiimote controller is being used to replace the joystick-type controllers used by PackBot IED disposal robots.

The ready availability of cheap processing power has not escaped DARPA, who have a program called Space Time Adaptive Processing or STAP Boy, with the goal of "harnessing the power of modern gaming chips to put teraflop signal processing into the hands of the individual soldier." Under this program, cheap hardware based on gaming engines will be used for tasks such as "high-resolution radar imaging….urban structure mapping and occupant tracking, and multi-dimensional automatic target recognition."

Presumably the troops will also be able to play Grand Theft Auto during downtime.

Source : David Hambling (DangerRoom, 19 juillet 2008).

L'article dans sa version complète, c'est : ici.

Sur le même sujet, la Ligue vous conseille l'article Game consoles used to control drone fighters sur le site MSNBC.