Michigan Team Uses Robots to Fight Terrorists



November 30, 2004 -- The Department of Defense is in trouble. The usual research and development methods have bogged down and no longer produce the innovative ideas at the rapid pace needed to keep ahead of the enemy. In an attempt to break the log jam and get fresh ideas flowing they have taken their latest need and put it into the form of a competition open to small garage company teams like the one Paul Grayson formed to participate in this race AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MACIC, LLC http://aimagic.org.

Paul Grayson says "What the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has asked me to do is to put together an all-volunteer team and demonstrate a vehicle that can drive itself 175 miles across the Mojave Desert without human assistance on Oct. 8, 2005" http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge "I am involved in this because if I don't help, who will It is what I can do as an engineer to fight terrorists."

While Paul Grayson is putting every bit of his own manpower, materials and money that he can afford into this project, it is not enough. He needs the assistance of other people who have enough resources at their disposal that they can afford to contribute the amount of Manpower, Materials and Money necessary to be successful in this race. Perhaps you can help and know others that can help.

Terrorist put us all at risk so we all have a personal stake in how well AIM does in its attempt to provide the demonstration the DoD wants. This is a race to save soldiers lives and ourselves.

AIM needs 10 volunteers to be pit crew and travel with the vehicles. Additional people are needed such as office staff, programmers, engineers, and scientists. Fundraisers are needed to generate the cash required to buy the radar, sonar, automatic transmission, hydraulic valves and other parts needed. Sales people are needed to sell product placement in our videos, the advertising space available on the race vehicles, support vehicles, shop banners and pit crew coveralls. Also video people are needed to film the documentary of AIM preparing for the race. We will know about sunset on Oct. 8, 2005 if all this effort was enough and how it all turned out.

You can help and no doubt know others who can help. The more you contribute, the better AIM will do. It is expected that soon after this demonstration Automatic Guided Vehicles will be driving truckloads of supplies reliably and safely from the supply depot to where the troops are without putting drivers at risk. Tell your friends that you are helping make sure that no more Army supply truck drivers will be sitting ducks.

The U.S Congress has mandated that by 2015 one third of all military vehicles must be converted to driverless operation. With the large number of vehicles this represents, to accomplish the conversion in time, the technology needs to be demonstrated now and the conversion started as soon as possible. While AIM is only involved in demonstrating that it can be done, once it has been demonstrated it will be up to the transportation industry to produce huge number of retrofit kits needed for existing government owned vehicles, option kits for the vehicles in production and integrated designs for future vehicles. When the public sees this technology being used safely by the military, they will demand it for use on civilian vehicles - resulting in a demand for automation package components in much larger numbers than the military uses.

This snowball effect all starts with you encouraging people you know to help AIM demonstrate that it can be done. AIM has the opportunity to bring international attention to sponsors and sponsors products. It certainly looks like a win-win situation for anyone who helps AIM with the demonstration.

Time is very short. AIM's need is immediate. Your advertising opportunity is now. Terrorists are well funded by individual contributions. Shouldn't AIM's attempt at thwarting terrorists be as well funded

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC,LLC
Farm Vehicle Automation
1892 Pinewood Ave.
Traverse City, MI 49684
(231) 946-0187 second shift 5 pm to 11 pm Eastern time.
e-mail protected from spam bots
http://aimagic.org





Michigan Team Uses Robots to Fight Terrorists