In 2010 and again in 2011, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) suffered two setbacks when it lost both its mach 20 Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) gliders during test flights. Now, in a new report on the HTV-2′s second ill-fated flight in 2011, DARPA says that they believe they know why the the craft failed — but its not all bad news.

Boston Dynamics, the robot-building company that brought you BigDog and PetMan, is showing off another DARPA-funded robot project called Sand Flea. While Sand Flea normally just tools around close to the ground like your standard remote control car, when it meets an obstacle it rears back and fires a piston against the ground. This shoots Sand Flea some 30 feet into the air, landing safely on the other side. Who needs stairs when you can just launch over ‘em?

Careful readers will notice that the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) has a thing for robotic animals. While those were impressive in their own right, none of them were particularly quick off the mark — until now. Working with Boston Dynamics, the maker of BigDog, DARPA has produced a robot called Cheetah that can run at speeds up to 18 miles per hour, completely shattering the 1989 legged robot speed record of  13.1 miles per hour.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known to its friends as DARPA, has announced their latest innovation: Instant fire suppression. The goal of the research project, which was part of a joint venture with Harvard University, was to find a better way to put out fires. Instead of conventional tactics, DARPA wanted a high-tech tool that would attack the very physical make up of fire using acoustics and electromagnetism.

As is the case with most projects coming out of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, this starts simple and quickly becomes complicated. Here’s the simple part: Currently, military planners rely on drones to get real-time information about battlefields or areas of interest. Now things get complicated, as there aren’t enough drones and they don’t fly high enough to enter what DARPA calls “denied territories.” In order to bridge that gap, DARPA makes it really complicated by researching the possibility of capturing video from space using spy satellites fitted with enormous flexible lenses some 60 feet across.

Just a few days after writing about the Ant-Roach, another example of robots that shirk rigid construction has emerged in the form of this delightful little fellow. This soft robot, built by a George M. Whitesides and his research team at Harvard, is capable of walking using only the inflation of specialized compartments for locomotion. The result is a floppy, undulating quadruped that could point the way for the future of robotics.

Ostriches are famous the world over for being fast runners, and also some of the most evil, foul-tempered creatures on the planet. That speed has got the people at MIT and the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition interested as they work to develop FastRunner, a bipedal ostrichbot capable of moving incredibly fast over land. As far as the ill-tempered nature of the robot’s natural analog, that might perk some interest at DARPA, who are apparently fostering the bot’s development.

The challenge was laid down by DARPA, the military research organization that brought you the Internet and BigDog, to build a robot that can run at sustained speeds of 25mph. FastRunner, though still in development, is predicted easily match that goal thanks to an incredible leg design.

You’ve been horrified by BigDog, DARPA’s creepy robot canine that could one day carry cargo for troops traveling overland. You’ve cooed with delight over LittleDog, the little brother robot that looks like a Dustbuster come to life. Now meet Boston Dynamics’ AlphaDog, the head-honcho of the pack.

This massive quadraped robot has the same cargo carrying mission as BigDog, but with significantly increased range and payload. Boston Dynamics says that when finished, AlphaDog is expected to carry some 400 pounds of equipment for 20 miles. This video of the prototype shows off the AlphaDog, already carrying a hefty payload, retaining its incredible ability to stay upright despite being kicked by its creators, and of course its unsettling gate. It also packs at least one new trick: A really, really creepy method for self-righting after falling.

Careful observers will note that the AlphaDog doesn’t sound like the horrific spawn of a two-cycle motor and demonic bees straight from Satan’s honey farm, as the early videos of BigDog demonstrated. While I’m certainly no expert, AlphaDog appears to be connected to an external power supply and thus lacks the irritating noise. When the final version of the robot is scheduled to debut in 2012, we’ll know for sure. In the meantime, read on below for a video of AlphaDog in action.

DARPA’s ambitious Walrus airship may be dead in the water, but some of its high-tech concepts could still be taking to the air. Having received a cash infusion from DARPA, the airship company Aeros hopes that its Pelican craft could provide heavy-lifting capability from a lighter-than-air craft.

One of the major selling points of the Pelican is that it could solve a key problem that has dogged airship design having to do with buoyancy. As the aircraft’s motors burn fuel, it becomes lighter and starts to float upwards. To offset this, expensive helium gas is released from the airship. The Pelican would take a different approach to this problem, according to Aviation Week:

[The Pelican is] a 230-ft.-long, 600,000-cu.-ft. demonstrator for its rigid-aeroshell, variable-buoyancy (RAVB) technology. Inside the shell, comprising a load-bearing frame of carbon-fiber trusses covered by thin-gauge rigid panels, will be a membrane to contain the helium lifting gas. Inside that membrane will be pressurized pump-fed tanks. More helium under pressure in the tanks makes the vehicle heavier, and less makes it lighter.

In some of Aeros’ existing craft, this has been achieved with donut-shaped compartments that fit around the airship as pictured above. Using vectored thrust propulsion, this could allow the Pelican could take off and land vertically, hover, and land with little help from a ground crew. The company claims that the Pelican could even move cargo on and off ships without having to land. Aeros is planning a demonstration flight in 2012-2013, and has (as yet unfunded) hopes for a 60-ton capacity craft in the near future. But given the tenuous nature of military research, those plans could easily float away.

(Aviation Week, The Register, via Engadget)

As unmanned drones and some ground-based robots are becoming a larger part of the Pentagon’s battle strategy, naval warfare is often regarded as the next vanguard for the robotic revolution. For its part, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)  is looking to bring unmanned semi-submerged sub-hunting robots to the fray with the Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV).

It’s noteworthy that this is the first DARPA project I’ve seen that doesn’t have a clever, easily pronounceable acronym.

The ACTUV would loiter out in the ocean for extended periods of time, keeping an eye out for submerged enemy submarines. Once located, the ACTUV would stay on the sub’s tail, sending back vital information to mission planners. But keeping on the tail of those submarines while dodging shipping traffic seems to be the rub of the project, so DARPA has rolled out a nifty video game where you (yes, you!) help crowdsource the best tactics.