Sauntering toward you like a mechanized zombie is the Army’s newest recruit: a robot with a blinking red light where its head should be.
That’s the PETMAN, the latest creation of Boston Dynamics, the robotics shop best known for its eerily lifelike BigDog, a quadrupedal robot that wants to carry troops’ gear. The PETMAN, in development for years, is built like a human being, walks autonomously on two legs while pumping its arms like a person, and resists efforts by Boston Dynamics engineers to push it over.
As recently as 2009, the PETMAN — or Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin — was little more than a circuit board connected to hydraulics that terminated in mannequin feet. Now it weighs 180 pounds, looks like the Terminator with the skin burned off, walks much faster than any non-28 Days Later zombie and can do a push-up. In the new video above, it also kind of looks like it can perform the Super Bowl Shuffle.
PETMAN isn’t supposed to be a robo-mule. Boston Dynamics sells it as a way to “simulate how a soldier stresses protective clothing under realistic conditions,” including wearing heavy chemical weapons gear. Lest anyone think the Terminator comparison is far-fetched, the company assures that PETMAN’s ersatz “human physiology” means it will be “sweating when necessary.” A headless robot that sweats.
That points to a benign path for the robo-zombie. A robotic simulation of human physiological conditions — with parts that “mov[e] dynamically like a real person,” in the company phrase — could open the door to new innovations in prosthetics. Darpa already has a big push to introduce subtle neural sensations into prosthetic limbs for the most realistic feel possible. The PETMAN might be a boon to that effort.
Of course, the PETMAN could use a prosthesis of its own, since it still doesn’t have a head. Even the Octavia robot developed for the Navy has a cherubic face built out of white plastic. The PETMAN’s remorseless flashing red light atop its shoulders is anything but soothing. Which points to another potential use for the robot: scaring the hell out of an enemy.
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