The pack mule robot by Boston Dynamics, a Google company that recently wished us all a terrifying Merry Christmas, was being put through field testing by the United States military. The robot was meant to make it easy for military personnel to carry heavy equipment in the field however the military is giving up on this robot not because it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do because it’s just too loud.
Boston Dynamics makes some pretty good robots but its creations tend to make a lot of noise, that’s to be expected from a contraption that’s made primarily out of metal that clanks together.
Military personnel in the field need to have the element of surprise with themselves, the power to take the enemy by surprise is very essential, so a robot that announces their arrival from a mile away isn’t exactly the best thing to carry in the field.
Kyle Olson, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, says that Marines put the robot to good use in order to discover any and all of its limitations. What they came back most concerned with was the noise this robot makes, noise that’s going to give away their position, and that could mean the difference between life and death.
Robots will most certainly play a larger role in the military as technology advances, we just have to wait it out.