If you have watched discovery channel you might come across “Prototype this” program where the team usually tries to build a real life toy based on its miniature model. Like remote controlled real cars using toy car technology. In the same vein some researchers(or Game scientists ?) have come with innovative ways to use Wii controller in the real life war.
For kids, a new way to control virtual characters is all fun and games. For soldiers, more intuitive controls for robots could mean the difference between life and death.
Using the controller from the popular Nintendo Wii gaming system (the “Wiimote”) scientists from the Idaho National Laboratory, working with engineers from the U.S. Army, Foster-Miller, and iRobot, are developing novel ways to control military robots.
“If a soldier wants to find a bomb [with a robot], 95 percent of their attention has to be focused on the screen,” said Doug Few, an engineer at the Idaho National Laboratory working on the project. “Using the Wii remote reduces the work load on the operator and also extends the numbers of domains that the robot can be used in.”
The current laptop interface that controls the military robots can have up to 50 hard buttons and requires a soldier to place all attention to the monitor, a potentially deadly distraction in a war zone.
