Pentagon Invests in Unmanned 'Trauma Pod'

"SAN FRANCISCO - The Pentagon is awarding $12 million in grants on Monday to develop an unmanned "trauma pod" designed to use robots to perform full scalpel-and-stitch surgeries on wounded soldiers in battlefield conditions."

start.earthlink.net.../42478f50_3421_1334520050328672699006

Does anyone else think we are gearing up for a "major" ground battle somewhere?

Yikes!

I really don't think we're advanced enough to trust robots to perform medical procedures yet.
Maybe if they first started down the path of a sort of remote controlled pod, with a real team of doctors on the other end, they could get the ball rolling.

I really don't it would be feasible to make a fully automated device like this for at least another 10-20 years.

I would never let that thing operate on me

14 million doesn't seem like enough. Maybe that is the starter capital.

Scary stuff.

Originally posted by SpittinCobra
14 million doesn't seem like enough. Maybe that is the starter capital.

Scary stuff.

Look, remote surgery on wounded in a "nuke" or "chemical" or "bio" war is essential. Doctors can't be "exposed" in many cases. If the doctors get sick, who does the surgery? It can be done from a remote "bunker".

How does a soldier end up inside? Does another soldier have to place him or her inside? Why doesn't the actual doctor just travel around inside this thing? This thing looks like a pretty big target. Seems pretty farfetched and more like a waste of taxpayer money. When did the Pentagon start caring about our soldiers?

Peace

[edit on 28-3-2005 by Dr Love]

Originally posted by negativenihil
Yikes!

I really don't think we're advanced enough to trust robots to perform medical procedures yet.
Maybe if they first started down the path of a sort of remote controlled pod, with a real team of doctors on the other end, they could get the ball rolling.

I really don't it would be feasible to make a fully automated device like this for at least another 10-20 years.

Something tells me that they have already gone beyond getting a team ready with the machine ... Something tells me that that is exactly what you do in the beggining stages of development ... but now would not be surprised if we were already using these somewhere. But we just need to be careful to keep field medics around that know what they are doing .. especially people that have been doing these things for so long get better at them as they go along as to where robots would not get better accept if the programming got better ..

Originally posted by DrHoracid
Does anyone else think we are gearing up for a "major" ground battle somewhere?

Yeah, that happened in 2000 with the election theft, it's been going smoothly since.....we're engaged in South America, the Korean Penisula, throughout Asia Pac, the Middle East...hell, just 'Old Europe' is a ways away for now!
Seriously, bullet diplomacy is going to follow to it's natural extensisons. The Super Soldier grants have been authorized already, by this administration, during their first term. This is just more of the same.

Originally posted by ufo3
I would never let that thing operate on me

See above; you won't have a choice, Citizen.

Developing such technology is a good idea I think even if conceptualizing the logistics is difficult. However, it seems to me that fast efficient med-evac is the best way to save lives on the battlefield.

Without the chopper, I wouldn't be here and while having a few of these at the ready for cases that require immediate surgical intervention would probably help save some lives, I can't see them having enough to do much good for most who are wounded in a major battle, such as the battle for Hue or something on the order of an Iwo Jima. Of course, a hospital ship off shore could negate the necessity of such a vehicle.

I'm just having a problem figuring out how these things would be deployed. In a company sized engagement you could have 20 men in need of immediate surgery in only a few minutes and there would have to be a very effective triage process.

As someone said, one of these would be just as vulnerable to attack as any other vehicle in a combat zone and one RPG would make a pressure cooker of the thing and cook everyone in it.

[edit on 05/3/28 by GradyPhilpott]

Humm I wonder about the exact reason for this type of technology, and I keep having these visions of robots going crazy and shopping the bodies in pieces.

No, I am not very sure about this new technology performing surgery at all.

Take it from an old soldier, if it can save a wounded troops life and bring him home to family & friends...its a good thing. I wonder how their gonna test this rig? Do you shoot a Llama and toss it in?

J/K ...

I hope it gets developed and sent to the field ASAP.


Maximu§

Wait the link says that the surgeons will operate it remotely/wiresly in the field, and that its at least a decade away form being on a battle field.

This changes everything we can keep our medics safe while using these expendable robots to do their work. Excellent!

[edit on 28-3-2005 by WestPoint23]

I doubt that is going to do much for the safety of medics and Corpsmen. They're still going to be the ones on the battlefield treating the wounded and getting them back to such a device.

I think working out the technology for such a thing is going to be alot easier than working out the tactical component, even with red crosses painted all over the thing when the enemy is such that we have faced in the last 100 years who don't give a rat's patootie about the Geneva Conventions.


[edit on 05/3/29 by GradyPhilpott]

Guys its a grant from what I understand and will be years away from production. Robots are already in use in OR's today. Google AESOP and minimally invasive surgery

yup i have just seen a clip a few times recently useing robotic surgery for a heart bypass. the doctor sits in the controler several feet away. it was rather cool actualy. i believe it was on tlc. the only part of the operation that was done "by hand" was the actual attachment of the new artery.

so the robot part is already in service now all we need is the vehicle and remote systoms. technicaly speaking i would say they could have a test vehicle within a year. the hardest part is the robot and that is already in use the remote systom would have to be encrypted and some way to stop jamming. this is where the work needs to be done now, a vehicle would be rather easy to adapt.

i never even thought of a battle field use for it. man i should have known it was a military funded project.