GameSpot discovered a story in the New Scientist about how the U.S. Military have modified one of their Packbot bomb disposal robots to accept input from the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing wireless Wiimote controller:
The Packbot, which is made by iRobot, hunts down explosives, disposes of bombs, and checks for landmines to make areas clear for US soldiers.
Packbot can do some tasks autonomously, but is generally controlled by a soldier via a joypad, similar to a standard console controller. However, doing things this way requires an awful lot of concentration, believe the two engineers, and a Wii Remote is much better suited to the task.
Bruemmer said, “Our tests show 90 percent of the operator’s workload goes into driving the robot rather than keeping an eye on the sensor data. The Wii Remote is far more intuitive because movements of the hand directly translate into movements of the robot.” This would therefore allow the soldiers to be able to pay closer attention to what they’re seeing.
Incidentally, iRobot also makes an autonomous household cleaning robot you may have heard of - the Roomba. Assuming the Packbot’s pedigree is similar, we’ll be looking forward to a whole new genre of kid-tested, mother-approved videogames.
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