A.R.E.S. Telepresence Tank gets kill commands via WiFi

As if you had any reason to believe that killbots weren't multiplying by the minute, here's yet another case to strike fear in your heart. Project A.R.E.S. was designed with a few key goals in mind: to replace human soldiers and to demonstrate that a weapons system could be controlled wirelessly / remotely. The designers also set out to "provide a form of feedback so that the user could navigate the robot without actually being present," and the current version has been equipped with a semi-automatic turret and a wireless camera to give the controller a good view of the surroundings. We don't get the idea that this bugger has enlisted just yet (boot camp is a chore, you know), but be sure and check out the video of it prancing about after the jump.

[Via Hacked-Gadgets]

[Shane @ Jun 9th 2008 9:43AM]

YIKES! I hope they are kidding about controlling this thing with WiFi. Lets hope it uses a seriously hardened communications link...

[Flashpoint @ Jun 9th 2008 10:39AM]

DROP YOUR WEAPON !!!!

YOU HAVE 15 SECONDS TO COMPLY !

[Generic @ Jun 9th 2008 5:12PM]

@Flashpoint

eh, before or after the WiFi gets hacked?

[Ian @ Jun 10th 2008 1:49AM]

that all depends on if you can hack it in 15 seconds..

[ludolf @ Jun 9th 2008 9:45AM]

I wonder what is the user keybord layout

WSAD?

hahah

What is the sensitivity?

[David85 @ Jun 9th 2008 9:47AM]

Should have called it project A.R.S.E., would have been funnier....

[Flashpoint @ Jun 9th 2008 9:50AM]

Has anyone noticed that America resembles one of those evil empires from the average first person shooter lately?

[Josh L @ Jun 9th 2008 10:30AM]

Not really.

But if it did, it would make me happy to know that my country is everything that the average insipid story-writing hack hates.

[M.Samba @ Jun 9th 2008 9:50AM]

I can just imagine the conversation that brought about this...thing

Military Personal #1 "Hey lets make a machine that can kill people"

Military Personal #2 "That's a great idea! Lets also control it via WiFi"

Military Personal #1 "Yeah! what could possibly go wrong?"

[Bart Lee @ Jun 9th 2008 9:51AM]

What, no price or release date? Nuts!

[J @ Jun 9th 2008 9:53AM]

WOW! I want to see it get a virus.

[farfisa @ Jun 9th 2008 9:55AM]

I can not only play Doom, it can spell it. For all!

[IT-Accountant @ Jun 9th 2008 9:58AM]

WIFI controlled eh? Ever heard of Backtrack?

Not cool when your killbot gets hacked in 5 minutes.

[Ralph @ Jun 9th 2008 10:08AM]

I hope the enemy doesn't run up a flight of stairs.

[Louis @ Jun 9th 2008 10:09AM]

Christ I hope that thing doesn't use WEP...

[Seanross @ Jun 9th 2008 12:03PM]

Hell no, Military don't need no stinkin WEP, its on an open connection....

[ssiioonn @ Jun 9th 2008 10:13AM]

"Terminator: Skynet has become self aware. In one hour it will initiate a massive nuclear attack on its enemy."


LOL

[Kurian @ Jun 9th 2008 10:17AM]

Ah yes, now they almost look like the prototype machines in the Skynet building.

[CosterMonger @ Jun 9th 2008 10:19AM]

lets hope it the key size is at least 512bits, and lots of cryptanalysis to see if there are any vulnerabilities.
--
"Hey Timmy, what'cha' got there?"

"It's my KILLBOT3000, now mom and dad will listen"

[duffman @ Jun 9th 2008 10:30AM]

Can you also send the term command via wifi?

[CJ @ Jun 9th 2008 10:42AM]

"In the future, wars won't be fought by soldiers on the battlefield; they'll be fought by ROBOTS, in SPACE, or possibly on very tall mountains. And your job will be to build and maintain those robots!"

[Gio @ Jun 9th 2008 10:55AM]

FYI:

This is a senior design project at University of California - Riverside.

[dom.rout @ Jun 9th 2008 11:18AM]

"Please hold still while my robot slowly positions itself to kill you."

[animedbz1000 @ Jun 9th 2008 12:45PM]

This was my senior design project at Purdue Univesity, though they some of the links are broken.

http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~dsml/ece477/Webs/F06-Grp03/index

[animedbz1000 @ Jun 9th 2008 12:50PM]

Here is one link to our poster we made, yea i guess all the attached files are there, just links to them are broken, but you can probably figure it out, just folders got messed up, when they archived the site.

http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~dsml/ece477/Webs/F06-Grp03/documents/Poster.ppt

[keithwwalker @ Jun 9th 2008 2:34PM]

aw, that Wall-E is da cutest!

[Vamsee Kandimalla @ Jun 9th 2008 3:09PM]

Wifi Module is with IEEE 802.11i-PSK (AES-CCMP) or WPA-PSK (TKIP) security. It also optionally supports 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standards (Rijndael) encryption. Our robot is not HACK PROOF but it's security is decent.

animedbz1000, wow we had many of the same goals, do you have any further pictures with your project? How were your results?


LOL @ Wall-E and SkyNet comments, never even thought of that while making this project haha.

[OCP @ Jun 9th 2008 5:46PM]

Wow, very nice project Vamsee Kandimalla. If this was just your senior design project I'm looking forward to what you'll be making later on!

[Endre @ Jun 9th 2008 7:40PM]

That's the lamest piece of junk I've seen in a while. Seriously. It looked like a cheap RC car with some shit added onto it. Its driving skills were absolutely useless. Its servo control of the camera and WTF that "gun" were supposed to be was really jerky but still slow. The camera was super-narrow lowrez.

This is a joke, of course?

[Jacob @ Jun 9th 2008 8:05PM]

cool project bro! whats the user interface look like? a nice GUI could help control it much easier, im assuming right now its probably command interface through just keyboard?

[EJ @ Jun 9th 2008 8:27PM]

That much power coming from someone accross the world on a computer....this completely dehumanizes the element of war. I read that A.E. put in a order of 300 killbots recently and are trying them out.

Nonetheless I see it is a college project. Good use of techinical skills & concept / application of wifi - I believe most are using RF signal at the moment.

[Ed @ Jun 11th 2008 12:26AM]

seriously whats so great about this robot. its not a robot at all. you can make one from an rc car, just add one more joystick and button, for panning and killing....