SPAWAR - Autonomous Military Robots
A few years ago I toured the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Robotics Lab in San Diego. I shot photos and wrote a piece for Wired about my experience there. What follows are some out-takes along with high-res versions of many of the shots in the piece. Autonomous military robots... what could go wrong?
SAN DIEGO -- The Navy's MDARS-E is an armed robot that can track anything that moves. Told that I was the target, the unmanned vehicle trained its guns on me and ordered, "Stay where you are," in an intimidating robot voice. And yes, it was frightening. Perched atop a strip of cliffs lining a beautiful section of the Pacific Ocean, the Space and Naval Warfare System Command in San Diego develops semiautonomous armed robots for use in combat by the U.S. military. "We're not building Skynet" says Bart Everett, the technical director for robotics at SPAWAR. Though Everett assured me that the use of the robots' on-board weapons is under the strict control of their operators, the lab's bots can navigate and map complicated terrain, work cooperatively with soldiers and identify and confront hostile targets. Sure, they're no Johnny Five, but robots with guns are both creepy and fascinating.
Robart 3E at SPAWAR
ROBART III is a prototype platform designed in-house at SPAWAR. If it weren't for the chain gun and missiles, he would be pretty cute. Once he's ready for battle he'll almost certainly don an evil-looking suit of armor. ROBART's sensor array consists of a multitude of cameras, SICK LIDAR (like radar, but with lasers), ultrasonic transducers (gold spots), passive IR (infrared radiation) detectors and more. The weapons are planned to work in unison with a special rifle that would automatically target where a soldier points his weapon.
Laser Guided Chain Gun on Development Robot
One of ROBART III's weapon systems is this nonlethal pneumatic chain gun. It uses a combination of laser sighting and machine vision to lock in on its target and barrages it with a torrent of 3/16-inch-diameter projectiles. In tests, plastic pellets (like air-soft munitions) and steel darts were used.
Autonomous Machine Gun
This prototype robotic weapon platform is designed to be buried underground for camouflaged deployment. When called to action, the robotic gun pops up and starts shooting. If you're the unlucky soul on the business end of this gun, it's likely curtains for you -- this robot is an extremely accurate shooter. A high-tech night-vision scope permits dead-on targeting even during moonless nights.
Wired Gallery: Igniting a Star With Laser Light
A few months ago while on a San Francisco vacation with my lovely wife Penelope, I took a tour of Livermore Lab's National Ignition Facility.
NIF is an amazing experiment designed to create fusion using lasers. As you've probably noticed, I love lasers and robots, and NIF employs both to get its job done. The NIF gallery just went up on Wired.com. It uses the new gallery format which allows for bigger pictures and the ability to view the whole thing at once. NIF is probably the coolest thing I have ever photographed.
Click the photo below to see the gallery:
My Top 10 Wired Galleries From 2008
Last year I shot 26 galleries for Wired.com. Although we're well into the new year and past the usual top-ten retrospective period, I've put together a collection of my ten favorite shoots from 2008.
I really enjoy shooting for Wired, mostly due to the fact that I'm a huge nerd and love technology and science. I'm looking forward to shooting many more cool locations, labs and lairs this year.
So without further ado, here they are, my top ten favorite Wired.com galleries from 2008:
- #10: New Purification Plant Answers California's Water Crisis - This tour took me through an amazing new waste treatment plant that basically turns sewage to drinking water.
- #9: Homemade Bombs, From Richard Reid's Shoe to Kaczynski's Envelope - I wasn't sure to expect when I attended this Homeland Security trade show, but when I saw the simulated bombs I knew it would be interesting and controversial. When DHS gave me permission to shoot them I was really excited. Don't miss the comments on this gallery. Priceless.
- #8: Journey Into the Science of the Sun - High-vacuum equipment has always interested me. When I saw the giant vacuum chamber used in this experiment I was enthraled.
- #7: Einstein's Legacy: Inside the Quest for Gravity Waves - Another tour that involved giant vacuum chambers. These were chock-full-o-lasers.
- #6: Gallery: Take an X-Ray With Your Office Sticky Tape - When I read the paper about this experiment I loved the whole premise, especially how easy it was to understand by the general public. I really like the glowing tape photo in this gallery.
- #5: Microscope-On-a-Chip Is One Step Closer to the Tricorder - This little chip will someday change the world. Very cool technology.
- #4: How to Make Superstrong, Superflexible Metals - The way the metal looks when it's molten is beautiful. I love these shots.
- #3: Gallery: Inside the Navy's Armed-Robot Labs - This was the only gallery I shot that actually frightened me. Autonomous robots are not awesome when they're armed.
- #2: A Lesson in Internet Anatomy: The World's Densest Meet-Me Room - When I first toured One Wilshire 9 years ago I snuck in a camera and took some photos of the crazy cables in the Meet-Me-Room. This time around I was on assignment and took photos of the crazy cables in the Meet-Me-Room. One Wilshire is awesome.
- #1: Inside NASA's Mars Mission - This is my all time favorite gallery that I've shot for Wired. My editor ranked it as one of the year's best. Here is what he said about it: "Our best science photographer, Dave Bullock, toured the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex shortly before the Phoenix lander touched down on Mars. His photos show the calm before the storm, and his coverage of the landing and the lander's first images was excellent as well."
As I mentioned yesterday, I am going through all my Wired.com assignment archives and uploading my favorite shots, including never-before-published out-takes, in full resolution on flickr and my gallery. Here are a few shots from my tour of Paul Bellan's Plasma Lab at Caltech:
A high-speed camera peers into the vacuum chamber, awaiting plasma to form.
A lens magnifies the view inside the vacuum chamber at the Bellan Plasma lab at Caltech.
Caltech graduate student fires a charge of electricity into the vacuum chamber, creating plasma in the process.
Wired Gallery: X-rays From Sticky Tape
I shot this gallery yesterday and my editor and I turned it around in less than 24 hours. You can view the gallery here on Wired, if you like it, give it a digg.
Wired Updates
I have somewhat of a backlog of galleries for Wired.com right now. Earlier this week one of them posted, as well as a photo of my laptop. In case you were wondering I wrote all the captions and intros for the galleries, but the laptop one wasn't written by me.
This gallery is about a new technology that will allow a microscope to be squeezed onto a microchip.
That's my laptop.
This gallery is about a scientists at Caltech who have shrunken a still down to micro-size.
Wired: Virgin Galactic Unveils WhiteKnightTwo Launch Vehicle
This morning I took a 20 minute flight on Virgin America out to the Mojave Spaceport to witness (and photograph) the unveiling of WhiteKnightTwo. I had a great time and wrote an article about it for Wired Science that I posted on the tarmac waiting to fly back to LAX. I ran in to Xeni Jardin and met Brian Lam when I was there.
My First <del>Sony</del> Wired Podcast(s)
I'm covering the Phoenix landing on Sunday from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Today was my second trip to JPL in as many weeks. I had a chance to interview two of the Mission Managers and I recorded them with my totally awesome Sony PCM-D60 using an excellent Sennheiser MD46 microphone and listening to it all with my Sennheiser HD 25-1 II headphones.
The first interview is with Joe Guinn, Mission System Manager:
My second interview that I recorded today is with Barry Goldstein, Phoenix Project Manager:
Screen-grabs hosted by flickr.
A funny anecdote: After interviewing Goldstein in Mission Control I asked him to move into some better light for a photograph with a good background. When he was walking over there I signaled Reuters photographer, Mario Anzuoni, to follow me so he could get a good photo as well. After I shot my photos Anzuoni took his, which is now up on Reuters. Here are some other great photos of the San Diego fire by Anzuoni.
Wired Gallery : Metallic Glass
A gallery that I shot for Wired.com just went live this morning. The process for creating the metallic glass is pretty cool. The materials they are producing will end up finding tons of commercial uses in the near future.
Heal a Robot, Go to War : WIRED News Gallery
A few weeks ago I toured USC's medical center for WIRED News. One of the interesting things I saw was their Surgical Skills Center. One thing they do there is particularly pertinent to a serious issue in our world, the Iraq War. Click here or on the image below to see the Heal a Robot, Go to War gallery on WIRED News.
Internet Archive Book Scanning on WIRED News
Earlier this year my lovely wife and I took a trip to the Bay Area to visit family and check out some cool stuff which I also shot for WIRED. One of the tours that my sister-in-law took us on was to the Internet Archive headquarters as well as a book scanning facility. The gallery went up on WIRED today:
Quantum Storage : WIRED News Gallery
A couple weeks ago I got an embargoed preview of an upcoming research paper in Nature. I contacted the scientist involved as well as my press contact at CalTech and asked if I could come down and shoot the experiment at the Quantum Optics laboratory. On Monday morning I went and interviewed the lead author of the paper, a student and researcher named Kyung Soo Choi. He explained the experiment to me, as the Nature article is quite dense, and afterward I shot the lab. Here is the resulting gallery on WIRED News:
WIRED News : UCLA Nanotech Lab Tour
Last week at UCLA I was given a really interesting tour of Dr. Omar M. Yaghi's laboratory where he and his students have created some amazing nanotechnology that has nearly unlimited potential. The gallery just went live:
I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed shooting them!
Stanford Linear Accelerator Awesomeness on WIRED News
Earlier this year I was treated to a wonderful tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. As you know, I love shooting photos of geek / nerdy / techy subjects and SLAC did not disappoint. I've been working with my photo editor at WIRED News (http://wired.com) for weeks on this gallery and it just went live:
wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/02/gallery_slac
Update Looks like the gallery has been linked on slashdot.
Biophysics Gallery on WIRED News
If you like crazy robots that automatically do all types of cool tests on individual cells you'll enjoy this gallery I shot for WIRED earlier this week:
PMA08 Wrap-up on WIRED News
I covered PMA08 for WIRED News. The final gallery just went live:
You can find my complete coverage here.
SPAWAR Robotics : WIRED News Gallery
Two weeks ago I drove down to San Diego and took some photos of SPAWAR's robotic research department. Check em out:
WIRED News Gallery : Groundwater Replenishment System
I shot this cool plant earlier this week. The gallery just went live over on WIRED News:
NAMM 2008 on WIRED News
Last weekend, despite having a freshly sliced up foot, I shot photos of the NAMM show for WIRED News. The gallery just went live on the front door of WIRED. You can check out the gallery by clicking on the screengrab below:
WIRED Gallery : Homeland Security Convention
I just shot the Homeland Security Convention yesterday at the LA Convention Center. The gallery is up on WIRED now:
Photo hosted by flickr.
DV Expo 2007 on WIRED
Two weeks ago I shot the DV Expo in Downtown Los Angeles for WIRED News. The gallery went live on the front door of wired.com today. This is the first time I've had two pieces on the front door of WIRED News at the same time. I'm really really really looking forward to my first magazine assignment, if I ever get one!
Electric Vehicle Symposium 23 : WIRED News gallery
Last week I stopped by EVS23 and shot some photos for WIRED News. You can check the gallery here. [Screenshot above hosted by flickr.]
WIRED News Photos
Here are a few links / screengrabs of recent photos I've shot for WIRED News:
Keep an eye out for my out-takes coming soon!
Wired Blog Post : Transformer in Hollywood
A short bit I wrote about a life sized version of Bumblebee in Hollywood just went up on the Wired News Underwire Blog. I'm looking forward to doing more writing and photography for Wired News, and hopefully for the actual magazine as well at some point.
WIRED Nextfest Multimedia Gallery
I'm excited. My first WIRED gallery just went online! So far there are 11 images in the gallery, but soon there should be around 20. Checkout my photos in the WIRED Nextfest Gallery. =]
Update The rest of my images, totaling 22, are now up on the gallery. I ended up writing the captions for the remaining 11 images. Unfortunately, WIRED.com's gallery doesn't allow two bylines for a gallery, but Kristen Philipkoski was nice enough to allow my to have the byline even though she wrote the captions on the original 11 images. Thanks Kristen!
WIRED Nextfest Multimedia Gallery
I'm excited. My first WIRED gallery just went online! So far there are 11 images in the gallery, but soon there should be around 20. Checkout my photos in the WIRED Nextfest Gallery. =]
WIRED Nextfest Photos
Here are a few of my photos from the WIRED Nextfest:
You can see the full gallery here: Nextfest Creative Commons Benefit, Nexfest Day 1 and Nextfest Day 2. If you haven't checked it out, take a look at my Nextfest Robot Roundup, which I just updated with photos. More after the jump.
WIRED Nextfest Photo Preview
I am covering the WIRED Nextfest for Wired.com. Here are some of the photos they aren't using on their site:
Here are the Nextfest stories that are using my photos:
- Buzz Aldrin Beats WIRED Mag Publisher at BrainBall
- Buzz Aldrin Hearts NextFest, X Prize
- Lunar Rover Makes Appearance at NextFest
- Larry Page: Science Has a Serious Marketing Problem
- Lunar Legacy Program: Send Your Photos to the Moon
- SpaceX Will Sell Launch Vehicles at Cost to Lunar X-Prize Competitors
More of my photos can be found in my gallery.
