I'm going to make a load of money from developing an EMP system to take down these drones.
Can you make a warzone delivery drone? UK.gov wants to give you cash
The Ministry of Defence is looking for drone startups to throw their hats into the ring for a Just-Eat-for-bullets ‘bot competition. The two-stage competition being run by the MoD focuses on “last-mile supply” systems. As the camo-wearing Sir Humphries put it: “Last-mile resupply involves delivery of combat materials from a …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 20th April 2017 16:24 GMT harmjschoonhoven
Re: make money from developing an EMP system
Nope. Prior art https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Zvpx9fFsM.
Battelle just shipped hundreds of DroneDefenders to Mosul.
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Thursday 20th April 2017 13:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: My exact thought
"There is no way in hell you can even sketch out the designs for anything even remotely innovative with that amount of money."
Not only that... From the article:
"...autonomously predict resupply demands from frontline troops..."
How can a drone predict resupply demands without also being able to predict the duration and outcome of the battle?
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Thursday 20th April 2017 17:59 GMT Pete 2
Re: My exact thought
> There is no way in hell you can even sketch out the designs for anything even remotely innovative with that amount of money.
'corse you can. Give me £40,000 and I'll "draw out" my sketch for an industrial sized tee-shirt canon. One that is specially designed to deliver stuff over the last mile to the front line. And being gas powered, it's probably EMP proof, too.
Innovative enough?
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Thursday 20th April 2017 10:18 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Re: Snouts and Pork Barrels
Intentionally pitched? You bet. Only, the intention will be to create a scenario that will ensure that in the end the contracts will have to go to the usual suspects, again.
"Despite all our efforts and funding, no independent developer came up with a viable concept. So, in the interests of our nation's safety, we see no alternative to awarding the contract to BAE."
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Thursday 20th April 2017 16:16 GMT Eddy Ito
It sounds like our SBIR programs. Phase 1 is typically little more than a feasibility study to generate ideas and frequently select the concept that moves to phase 2. Essentially the large corps will have one person and maybe a few interns study up and find something worth pursuing.
Phase 2 will be when the prototype stage is reached and is worth more money since they'll be looking for a proof of concept demonstrator. This is typically 6-24 months depending on complexity.
Phase 3 is moving to production and possibly commercialization. This is the big dollar part where the number of significant digits in the cost is doubled or more. The discussion often contains the phrase "certainly General, I believe we can get the price per unit down to £500,000 if you're willing to sign a contract for only 50,000 units."
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Thursday 20th April 2017 10:04 GMT Martin Milan
When you think about it, isn't there a lot of obvious work to be done here?
Ok - step one. Soldier has his weapons fitted / manufactured in such a manner as to send a bluetooth notification to an Android device every time a consumable resource (like a bullet) is used. This, assuming the android device knows the "initial stock", allows the Android device to:
1 / Periodically send inventory back to central server, allowing the back office boys to order a resupply as needed.
2 / Order it's own resupply once inventory reaches a certain level / if soldier requests it.
Android device connects by cell network (Army takes its own onto the battlefield) to command, and also to assigned drone. Provides location updates, allowing the drone to fly to soldier and follow an instruction like "drop it 1 meter south of my position".
Another nice advantage of this is that you can set your weapons to only fire when connected to your Android device - rendering the gun useless to Tommy Terrorist if he manages to prize it from your cold dead fingers. Just in case he does, the Android device has to receive authorisation from command every 2 or 3 days - shutting down if none received.
Those are just a few quick ideas...
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Thursday 20th April 2017 17:28 GMT Dave 15
Re: When you think about it, isn't there a lot of obvious work to be done here?
Can see that, mind you, the idea of a soldier wearing camo and hiding behind a rock while broadcasting on bluetooth where he is seems a little odd...
Next will be drones designed to pick up the same info and shoot the requesting squadie
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Thursday 20th April 2017 16:19 GMT FuzzyWuzzys
Given the suggested budget and the Gov's less than stellar record with with third-party IT suppliers, I think it's pretty much a forgone conclusion that the bad guy's brother's, mate who's bored DDOS'ing websites will jump at the chance. Take charge of a load of fully loaded drones carrying very useful ammo and other battlefield supplies.
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Thursday 20th April 2017 17:38 GMT Dave 15
Decent equipment... oh really
Why would you want to do that? The government sends our troops to war to get them killed and thus cut down on the redundancy and pensions bills.
Remember how much Thatcher wanted to cut the RN, Airforce and Army prior to the Falklands (in part the moving of the one RN boat in the area is thought to have contributed to the Argies thinking we didn't care about the islands). Do'nt forget that she got rid of those that survived. Similarly with Blair and Iraq... Its a pattern, they decide to cut the military and send it to war... every time.
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Thursday 20th April 2017 14:36 GMT Huey
Game It
Create a suitable titled war based drone delivery and destruction system game.
Re-create the actual battlefield realistically.
Have two sides deliverers vs destroyers.
Create ladder based tournaments/leagues
With a few weeks take the top 2-5% of the deliverers have them controlling actual drones (no need to them).
They continue to "play" without realising they are doing actual supply runs.
Update the game when new theaters start or the destroyers get new anti-drone weapons.
Rinse & repeat you'll get the best twitch based gamers doing all the work for free.
£40k please :)
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Thursday 20th April 2017 16:57 GMT Flakk
Re: Game It
That is somewhat "Last Starfighter"-ish, but I like it.
I was thinking of the ARPG aspect of the battlefield delivery concept. If I saw an enemy supply drone flying overhead, I'm not sure I could resist the urge to stop fighting long enough to try shooting it down... not for the purpose of denying resources to my enemy, but rather to find out what phat lewt it's carrying. Almost as good as "Diablo".
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Thursday 20th April 2017 15:18 GMT John Smith 19
I smell a grooming excercise.
1)Several companies do accept the challenge
2)Company wins challenge.
3)Company gets bought by BAe
4)BAe get follow on contract and X years late deliver the same capacity device at 10 000% more expensive.
5)Retired civil servant gets nice little executive directorship with BAe.
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Thursday 20th April 2017 16:52 GMT John Smith 19
US SBIR has been active for decades. UK SBIR started in 2009.
Hence I doubted many El Reg readers even knew it existed.
Looking at the details a bit more (SBIR's are not just MoD) the base line is 5Kg in a 1m cube at 8kph to a 3Km radius with up to 30km range on one tank of fuel.
What they'd really like is 50Kg up to a "NATO cubic pallet load" size (whatever that is) at >30kmh or the speed of a "quad bike and JSP800 trailer" over this terrain if you're providing a land vehicle. Airborne is to 15Kfeet and 20m/s winds. GPS will not be spoofed but cannot be relied upon but soldiers can be carrying beacons. Full details here
For some reason I keep thinking of this fellow obviously without the crew.
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Friday 21st April 2017 00:13 GMT Captain DaFt
Re: US SBIR has been active for decades. UK SBIR started in 2009.
"Looking at the details a bit more (SBIR's are not just MoD) the base line is 5Kg in a 1m cube at 8kph to a 3Km radius with up to 30km range on one tank of fuel."
Hmm, Trained dog with backpack. "Go get ammo, lassie!"
Dog runs to supply base, gets fed, watered, 15 minute rest, sent back.
"Good girl, Lassie!" "Huh? What's that girl? Timmy's down a well again? Well, sucks to be him, don't it!"
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Thursday 20th April 2017 17:22 GMT Dave 15
really
40k for 6 months including the materials for building a prototype.
Astonishing
Given that when they admit this has failed (and blame the apparently uninterested Brits) they will then go and give Capita or whoever 40k a day for some project manager to manage a project based on him and 2 people in India its a bit of an insult
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Friday 21st April 2017 20:55 GMT Zmodem
Re: £40K ?
if your good at engineering you can easily make a hoverbike for less
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkIc2Y5gKYM
which can carry 80 KG if someone is 13 stone. so if a payload is atleast 15 KG, you can have another 20 KG for computer system, and abit of armour
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