Robotics Coverage is Fluff

So I just discovered this military and aerospace electronics report that gives what is actually a pretty good run down on the recent contracts signed in the UUV space by the Navy in the last year.

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2012/06/uuv-video.html

Unfortunately, it appears to be written entirely from the press releases that the Navy puts out.  It fails to mention that most Navy unmanned maritime programs are struggling and the ONR research efforts on long endurance UUVs actually represent a Navy retreat from acquisition UUV programs like the cancelled BPAUV and LMRS.

I’ve got a forthcoming article that I hope to publish in Proceedings with a professor at CMU the talks about how the Navy could re-energize its unmanned systems programs.  The real problem is that the Navy is spending its research money on stuff that I’m willing to bet it won’t actually want.

Not that defense coverage is alone in being fluff.  I mean… really?  “Rather than get locked into a single niche where we’d actually have to build a business–you know like find paying customers and stuff–we’ll just put out fluff press releases.”  Who are these guys?