some DARPA-ISRAEL links

by ir » Wed Dec 21, 2005 6:56 pm

Learning from the octopus how to control movement of flexible arms Hochner B. Dept. of Neurobiology, Institute of Life Science and Center for Neuronal Computation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel Octopus arms are almost entirely composed of muscular tissue. This constrains the arm to a constant volume, enabling it to function as a flexible muscular hydrostat with a virtually infinite number of degrees of freedom (DOFs). This extreme kinematic redundancy requires highly efficient control mechanisms to overcome the resulting complexity and for solving the associated complicated inverse kinematics and dynamics problems. I shall describe how the octopus copes with these complex control problems, giving two movements as examples; the arm extension with which the octopus reaches for a target, and a fetching movement with which the octopus brings a grasped object to its mouth, this being an accurate point-to-point movement. Kinematic analysis and EMG recording in freely behaving animals help elucidate the control strategies and the neural control mechanisms involved in these movements. The octopus simplifies the control by dramatically reducing the number of DOFs to be controlled and by using relatively simple motor programs which are mainly based in the peripheral nervous system of the arm itself. Supported by uUS-DARPA and Israel Science Foundation The hippocampus and spatial memory: a uniquely long-lasting <a href="http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:cZ0555-y0ekJ:www.isfn.org.il/admin/AnnualBar/images/Germans%2520israel%2520web%2520nov%252005.doc+darpa+israel&hl=iw">66.249.93.104/search?q=ca...rael&hl=iw</a> 2.Carnegie Mellon Red Team: Funded by Caterpillar, for DARPA by Daniel P Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005 at 5:00 PM dannyp@indypgh.org (email address validated) Caterpillar Incorporated furthers its support of a Carnegie Mellon project to create a driverless vehicle to negotiate off-road in the Nevada desert. idfcmu.jpg, image/jpeg, 799x423 Caterpillar Incorporated has announced that it is strengthening support for Pittsburgh's own Carnegie Mellon University's "Red Team." The "Red Team" is an organization that seeks to build an autonomous (self-driven) off-road vehicle. This is being done to compete in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Association's (DARPA) Grand Challenge. The full press release, issued by Carnegie Mellon on August 25th, is attached at the end of this article. The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prime example of the close ties between academia and militarism in the modern day. While members of the Red Team and public relations gurus often speak of the commercial and civilian applications of the technology, the fact remains that the specifications of the contest are being given to these talented students and engineers from an organization that is part of the United States military. It should strike people as no coincidence that the competition isn't negotiating through traffic on I-76, but rather negotiating the barren Nevada desert- a terrain far more similar to Iraq and Afghanistan than the populated areas that a civilian autonomous vehicle would have to navigate. Caterpillar Incorporated is best known for making the construction and demolition equipment that makes sure that the forces of concrete will prevail in the War on Earth. But they're also responsible for furthering another war, a war against Palestinian families. Their D9 bulldozer is popular in the Israeli military, which converts it into an armored vehicle that is feared by Palestinians everywhere. Israel uses this equipment to demolish Palestinian homes on both sides of the Green Line- in the West Bank and Gaza, house demolitions often occur when land is seized for a security area around a settlement, or in retaliation for attacks against Israelis. Inside of the Green Line and in Occupied East Jerusalem, there has been an increasing number of home demolitions against Palestinian families for failure to have a proper building permit, despite the fact it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to get the needed permits. All of this has sparked a boycott of Caterpillar. What would Caterpillar do with an autonomous vehicle? One of the obvious customers would be none other than the Israel Military. An autonomous version of the Israeli Armored D9 would be able to demolish Palestinian homes with no risk of loss of life to Israelis. It would also presumably show even more reckless disregard for life than the manned counterparts, which have claimed the lives of Palestinians as well as the American activist Rachel Corrie. To continue to pretend that Red Team is working on a project that will be known for its peaceful applications is dangerously naive. This isn't a technology that's being developed for altruistic reasons, or for peaceful reasons. The inspiration and funding for this project is military. It's time Carnegie Mellon students face the facts. For more information on Carnegie Mellon University's involvement in the military-industrial-academic complex, the Pittsburgh Organizing Group has produced a flyer called Carnegie Military University. It was originally used around the POG demonstration of March 20th, 2004 as part of the campaign against the Gladiator autonomous armored vehicle, another Carnegie Mellon project being designed for the US Marines. add your comments <a href="http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/20264_comment.php">pittsburgh.indymedia.org/...omment.php</a> 3.ISRAELI BIG: SPACE WEAPONS, PLEASE The U.S. military isn't the only country, it seems, interested in putting arms in orbit. "Israel’s top lawmaker for defense and security affairs has called for the development and deployment of space-based weapons," Defense News reports. In a rare public discussion on Israel’s military use of space, Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Israel’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, said the nation must compensate for its lack of strategic depth on land by expanding use of sea- and space-based attacks. Specifically, Steinitz urged defense and industry officials to consider future developments of anti-satellite missiles, satellite-attacking lasers and ship-based missiles “that can strike the skies.” “In Israel, our strategic Achilles’ heel is our miniscule geographical size,” Steinitz told a Dec. 22 symposium sponsored by the Israeli Space Society and the Fisher Institute for Strategic Air and Space Studies. “This lack of ground territory — and our obligation to defend the homeland from attack — drives the need to develop a strategic envelope of air, sea and space forces not only for defense, but for attack.” “The other side faces a military handicap when compared to Israel, but it can use its borders to try — through primitive means like Scud missiles, long-range artillery and guerrilla tactics — to threaten Israeli territory. Israel cannot allow itself to forsake its ground forces, but it also cannot permit itself to be dragged into a land war. Therefore, it is beneficial to push the war into the air, sea and space...” While Steinitz conceded that his exhortations for a militarized, tightly integrated sea, air and space force was merely “my personal vision, at this point,” he said he would use his influential committee chairmanship to push for greater space-related funding. “What we’re seeing today is just the beginning spark of a new kind of warfare that warrants a new kind of defense doctrine." THERE'S MORE: Darpa chief Tony Tether is in Israel right now, Defense News notes, looking for new technologies to better fight the block-by-block battles that have become so common in Iraq. It's part of a growing trend of G.I.s relying on sabras to supply some of their gear. January 11, 2005 08:48 AM | Space <a href="http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001320.html">www.defensetech.org/archives/001320.html</a> 4.Israel Internet Spy Scandal - Why The Big Shock? By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Tel Aviv----May 30...... Chances are your computer is now being read by a stranger. Monitored by hundreds of Internet companies which have created spyware to track your every movement on the Internet so that they can gain intelligence on consumer behavior. But there are other spies out there too. Top executives of Israel's leading companies including Cellcom, Yes, Pelephone, Meir Motors, Tami-4, Ace Hardware, Volvo Israel and Amdocs have either been arrested or have been placed under suspicion in the last few days for corporate espionage. This also includes several private detective companies run and operated by former IDF officers ...(too long to post). <a href="http://www.israelnewsagency.com/israelinternetspydefensearrests5540530.html">www.israelnewsagency.com/...40530.html</a> several general DARPA links of interest 1.<a href="http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:Cu3x6B2youwJ:www.darpa.mil/body/pdf/P-3698_Vol_1_final.pdf+darpa+israel&hl=iw">66.249.93.104/search?q=ca...rael&hl=iw</a> 2.<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/start.html?pg=14">www.wired.com/wired/archi...html?pg=14</a> 3.<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/guthrie06032003.html">www.counterpunch.org/guth...32003.html</a> But by far the most recent and interesting re Israel-DARPA - ISRAELI SCIENTISTS MAKE ANOTHER STEP AGAINST BIOTERRORISM - Iddo Genuth for IsraCast - Israeli scientists working with the financial backing of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have developed a biochip that can detect toxic substances in drinking water. When the device will be available it will be the size of a credit card and will be able to analyze a water sample in less than ten minutes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Shimshon Belkin Shimshon Belkin, Professor of Applied Microbiology at the Hebrew University, and his team, have developed a biochip prototype which hosts living cells that can quickly assess the toxicity levels of drinking water. Professor Belkin presented the original idea to a team of U.S. army officials in the Pentagon on the 10th of September 2001. The next day, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were attacked by unscrupulous terrorists. Understanding the possibility of future attacks using biological agents against water supplies across the U.S., DARPA agreed to back Belkin’s research with 3.5 million dollars. A year later the first successful experiment took place. The problem with existing toxins detection systems is that although they are very good in detecting specifically known contaminators, in today's high-tech terrorist age, it is not too difficult to create new toxins and use them to contaminate a water supply. Since today there is no system that can identify any potential toxin, Professor Belkin’s revolutionary biochip is a strong new weapon in the war against bioterrorism. The new biochip is based on a novel idea. Instead of trying to analyze a sample to determine which toxins it includes, the biochip uses living cells that, like the body itself, respond whenever they are attacked. The biochip doesn't need to perform complex operations on each water sample nor does it give indication as to the nature of the toxins. All it does is to provide an answer to the question of the level of the water contamination. The living cells inside the biochip were genetically engineered to react to contaminated water by emitting light, in a similar way to that done by fireflies. Special receptors on the chip absorb the light and a computer algorithm has been designed to analyze the amount of light emitted and determine the contamination level. The current size of the biochip prototype and its supporting units is rather large and it weighs a hefty five kilograms. After completing the basic development and proving the idea works, the mission now is to reduce the size of the finished product to a few centimeters and several grams thus allowing the detector to be carried in a shirt pocket of any field operative that will allow him to perform a water toxicity test on site at any time. With the success of Belkin’s research, DARPA is now interested in expanding the capability of the detector to identify contaminates in all kinds of environments. This idea had been presented to a group of DARPA officials on a recent visit to Ben Gurion University in the Israeli Negev. The idea is to create a small pen-like detector that will be able to identify contaminates in water, blood, saliva and other fluids. This device will be of great value to medical people working in potentially hazardous environments to immediately assess the danger level without performing complicated and lengthy laboratory tests. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Belkin's web page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- contact Iddo Genuth <a href="http://www.isracast.com/tech_news/300305_tech.htm">www.isracast.com/tech_new...5_tech.htm</a> -------------------------------------- I bet the next stage of the grand experiment is to test the invention in 'real life crisis" preferably in Israel (from the PTB's perspective).

by ir » Wed Dec 21, 2005 8:01 pm

I am quite sure that DARPA has had projects going on in my father's workplace (ELTA, subsidiary of Israeli Aircraft Industry). Maybe they were working on their "super soldier" prototype using the workers in ELTA as unwitting human subjects. Just a feeling I have, because there are many project by DARPA that correspond to ELTA's projects. According to noe of the articles I refered (the link), the interst of DARPA in Israel dates to mid seventies, in terms of RADAR and such like equipments. --- Now I think they are using Jewish Israeli brains to explore memory/trauma (what is better than traumatized holocaust survivors' brains, one can even get a view on generational, genetic effects of trauma);

some DARPA-ISRAEL links

some DARPA-ISRAEL links

DARPA

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