Here is a write-up that, according to vor, may perhaps be a partial repeat of some discussion in this forum. (My apologies for any repetition.)


Off-Road Vehicles and the Vehicle that Walks like an Insect


Think of how a cockroach is able to speed over extremely rough terrain without leaving a trace, except perhaps for a few tiny "footprints" in sand or sugar! Can humans imitate such facility, dexterity, and minimal impact in locomotion?

It seems to me that a properly designed vehicle that walks like an insect might substantially reduce "off-road" vehicle impacts and create a largely "win-win-win" resolution of perhaps most, if not almost all, of the off-road vehicle issues between many or most environmentalists and many or most off-road vehicle enthusiasts.

And besides, the vehicle would probably be lots of fun to ride and be able to take people to lots of places that present, wheeled ORVs can't get to.

So I'd like to point out a few impact-related considerations that such a vehicle would involve and how such a vehicle might radically change the issues about off-road vehicle impacts.

(Note that, while snowmobiles are not addressed in this discussion, many of the issues discussed here, with appropriate modification, might be fruitfully applied to discussions of snowmobiles.)


The Vehicle that Walks like an Insect --

So what's so good about a vehicle that walks like an insect?

As you can probably imagine, there are lots of ways that such a vehicle can be designed and lots of ways it could be used.

As an ideal "prototype" I am thinking of a vehicle for transporting a single person and that weighs perhaps 50 percent to 100 percent of the person driving it. The total weight, including the weight of the driver and all his gear, might be about 300 or 350 lbs. Compare this with one horse (1000 lbs.) for the rider and another horse for his gear, with perhaps a total weight of 2500 lbs. or more. So such a 300 or 350 lb. vehicle could very well replace the current horse-packing practice of two horses and gear weighing about 2500 lbs. or more. That's a very substantial reduction in travel weight.

Weight is a significant factor for impact, and so it is something that should be considered.

But there are also other factors.

The very simplistic design of a wheel (actually four of them) rolling down upon everything in its path is extremely damaging to most types of wilderness environment.

But with a walking vehicle, "intelligent" engineering could be designed to automatically avoid vegetation and to otherwise utterly minimize impacts to vegetation, soils, and rocks. Basically, I have in mind walking robotics controlled by a very sophisticated computer program, so that vegetation would, for example, be automatically sensed and stepped over rather than stepped upon. The computer, using appropriate sensing devises, could dynamically change the speed with which each step approaches the ground, with automatic adjustments appropriate for various types of soil.

The actual "foot" has many possible designs, and several variations might used in a single vehicle with computer controls dynamically choosing the appropriate feet for the current terrain. Prototypes might be drawn from cougar paws, deer, sheep, and pronghorn hooves, and trekking-pole tips (with mud and snow "limiters"). Some of the impact-minimizing design would be in the "passive", compliant, mechanical nature of the feet (assuming simplistic walking motion) and some would be in the intelligent, automatic, dynamic control of the legs and feet.

Of course, the plan would be to utterly minimize any noise and any possible noxious exhaust or other side effects, and this along with the basic operability design of the vehicle needs to be done with an extremely high degree of reliability. (For one thing we don't want people getting stranded and stressed-out, and we don't want vehicles being junked in remote places, and we don't want "tow-insects" to have to extract failed vehicles except in extremely rare instances. And of course no human (or other fauna) should be able to smell or hear such vehicles except as appropriate in very rare emergencies.)

So what if we get such a "super", impact-minimizing vehicle? What are likely to be the social consequences?

Such a vehicle is such a radical concept that it is hard to fully anticipate all of the potential social consequences, but here are some of the scenarios I imagine.

For one thing, such a vehicle would be excellent as a "research vehicle" to conduct surveys and to do "original" scientific exploration.

Also, we might find a substantial reduction in need for horse packing, perhaps with the result that the high-impact, constructed, intensively maintained horse-packing trails can be completely eliminated from wilderness. Think of how much "prettier" even an ordinary foot trail would be in the place of horse-packing trails.

And horse-packers need not fear that the minimal-impact vehicle would put them out of business. Horse-packers could take on a sideline business of providing minimal-impact vehicles rather than pack horses for their clients. As the minimal-impact vehicle becomes popular the horse-packing aspect of business could be phased out, and eventually the high-impact trail maintenance could be phased out as well.

I also think it may be possible to do without even foot trails altogether. Think of how much prettier wilderness would be without even ordinary foot trails.

The biggest impact reduction seems likely in the areas where all-terrain vehicles are currently used. It seems reasonable that we may very likely see such an insect-like vehicle completely replacing the current vogue in wheeled all-terrain vehicles.

Now there are also potential negative consequences of such a vehicle.

Such a vehicle might become so popular that people might swarm quasi-wilderness and even wilderness areas with them. (Let's put aside for the moment whether there should be a legal restriction as there now is for designated wilderness.) People might think that, since one vehicle scarcely has any impact, there is no damage; hence there may be no hesitation to take them into all sorts of quasi-wilderness and wilderness environments. So we could possibly get a tremendous loss of solitude in large parts of quasi-wilderness and wilderness near high-density human populations.

(But note that, since the vehicles would be well-designed for traveling off-trail, it would take a lot more of them to obtain the same loss of solitude that now typically prevails with backpackers traveling on trails in popular wilderness areas.)

With large numbers of people driving such vehicles all over the place, without any need or regard for roads and with roads being regarded as an archaic concept, there might be some cumulative physical impact of such large numbers of vehicles, even though the impact of a single vehicle might be regarded as negligible. (Basically, I regard such a problem as a problem of a wilderness or quasi-wilderness being too close to and too popular with a high density of humans living nearby; I see this problem as basically the "tough" problem of over-visitation, whether on-foot or otherwise, due to proximity to high density human populations.)

There are at least some types of physical impact I can foresee that might require restrictions in where the vehicles can be driven. For example, if such a vehicle is using a trekking-pole type of foot, it probably would not be a good idea to drive it in the open desert where desert tortoises reside. The trekking-pole feet might poke through the sand and into tortoise burrows and pierce the tortoises themselves or at least substantially disturb or injure them.

Also a trekking-pole type of foot might tend to aerate the soil, and while gardeners tend to regard such a condition as favorable to earthworms and grass, it may perhaps "unnaturally" encourage vegetative growth in an undesirable way; at least it might result in a recognizable human impact, regardless of whether that impact might be regarded as favorable or unfavorable in principle. But of course, a cougar-paw type of foot might be the preferred foot in such an area.

And if some types of soft soils should not be driven over, the vehicle could be engineered to sense those types of soils and to automatically limit the speed with which the vehicle could operate, the result being that a driver would be motivated to, say, drive around a very wet, soft meadow rather than to try to drive over it. But this would depend on research as to actual impacts that might occur. And perhaps, if necessary, the engineering could be subject to government regulation and inspection much in the same manner as smog-control auto engineering is today, although I imagine the inspection and monitoring process could be much simpler and a lot less costly. But I think regulation and involvement by government, aside from encouraging the technology, should probably be completely avoided when possible. (Government regulation often tends to be very costly and typically has a great many undesirable side effects.)

From my own perspective, the most annoying or disappointing impacts that seem plausible are (1) a simple loss of solitude due to (the possibility of) encountering such vehicles everywhere I go, and (2), a bit more likely, the indirect sort of loss of solitude due to seeing (possible) trace impacts everywhere I go even though I might not actually encounter such a vehicle driven by another driver while visiting wilderness.

(Compare this second type of impact with the "loss-of-solitude" impact of boot scuff marks on the slick-rock in the narrows of Dry Fork in the Escalante area. Such scuff marks give the very strong sense that one could encounter other hikers at any time, and the scuff marks represent a very real psychological loss of solitude even though such a lone hiker may not actually encounter another hiker. Make no mistake about it: Yes, group hikes can be lots of fun, but group hikes as well as hikes in popular areas are generally a very different kind of "wilderness experience" than what can be found by a lone hiker in areas rarely visited by others.)

Of course, there is much research that would be needed concerning such a vehicle -- not only research into the design of the vehicle, but also research into how it could be used and what kinds of impacts might actually occur.

But it seems to me that such a vehicle is an extremely promising potentiality.

And so what will be the likely effects on various four-wheel-drive enthusiasts?

Generally, it is my impression that there will always be dyed-in-the-wool jeep aficionados, who, like world-war-II-gas-guzzling-fighter-plane aficionados, will always be interested in such things as a matter of a personal interest in preserving history.

But by and large I think that roughly 90 percent of the jeep drivers would readily convert to the utterly impact-minimizing vehicles and, basically, jeeps would rapidly become history.

The result is that, although the dyed-in-the-wool jeep aficionados may not want to give up any existing prime 4wd adventure-routes, there will be a lot less pressure to have lesser-used adventure-routes open for 4wd vehicles, and this would especially be the case if backcountry driving regulations are liberalized for the insect-like vehicles in recognition of their utterly impact-minimizing design.

But regardless of how the details play out, it seems there would be lots and lots of room for winning scenarios from every point of view, including that of both environmentalists and adventure drivers (as well as for people who may be both and as well as for others who may be neither).

And what about even further into the future?

I envision an insect-like vehicle that can climb fly-like up the face of El Capitan in Yosemite. But I think there might be at least a bit of "religious" outcry just as there are people today who are religiously opposed to any kind of surgery for correcting medical conditions.

As for myself, I would regard it as essentially no different than if I could just as readily spot climbers using the classical rope-based gear, which also might be regarded as a kind of vehicle of sorts. (It's just not all unified into one conglomerate "thing".)

And as for encountering someone driving an insect-like vehicle in wilderness? I would regard it impact-wise as essentially no different than encountering a backpacker on foot, except that insect-like vehicles have no need to be confined to trails. So I would be much less likely to encounter such a vehicle than I am to encounter backpackers out in the same numbers following trails. (Note that GPS units with intelligent software would probably be needed as a part of the vehicles so that people not following trails would be very unlikely to get lost. And there would probably be needed a "key-chain" vehicle-locator because such vehicles in a forest setting, for example, would be so inconspicuous that a driver who disembarks for a short hike may easily get lost from the vehicle even though he may be only 25 feet away.)

And what about potential impacts to habitat for flora and fauna? Essentially nil, except possibly for some losses of solitude, which might be just as important to some other fauna as it is to me.

But of course, this is all a subject for research to clarify just what impacts there might be and what adjustments might be appropriate.


Additional remarks --

It seems to me that the minimal-impact vehicle, because of its potential as a leave-no-trace "stealth" vehicle, ought to be of special interest to the military and specially to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

So for this and other reasons it seems I should be a little more specific about why I think at least _some_ federal sponsorship of research is appropriate -- specifically in regard to "research and development" for the design of the vehicle and potential alternatives.

And, of course, other people might have other, and perhaps better, ideas about the appropriate design of a minimal impact vehicle.

The minimal impact vehicle I envisage would be designed to automatically sense and analyze the nature of the environment and specific elements, such as vegetation or soil types, of the environment of the vehicle. The rider/driver would interact primarily with a computer and the computer would do most of the detailed work in analyzing the environmental information and responding appropriately to current conditions.

So I anticipate that a very large part of the design of the vehicle would be in developing appropriate algorithms for responding to environmental conditions. I anticipate that such research and development would be a very challenging task and require a lot of talent, patience, and time. But it seems to me that the use of computer algorithms and software would provide for a great deal of flexibility in design. This would allow a good deal of experimenting and relatively inexpensive and quick adjustments to the design based on accumulating experience.

In fact, it seems that some of the forum participants in the DARPA "Grand Challenge" contest themselves anticipate that such algorithm/software development would be quite a major part of the development for their entry into the "Grand Challenge" contest. (See <http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/> and click on the "forum" button.)

Also, it seems even development of the physical actuators (the "muscles" and mechanical linkages) might also require a good deal of sophisticated research and development. And the sensing devices themselves might also require a good deal of additional sophisticated research and development.

So it seemed to me that because of the talent, patience, and time that would seem to be required, most corporations, ever mindful of "the bottom line", would not have the courage to make such an investment on their own. And so it seems that the technology might be at most haphazard and slow at getting started without federal encouragement.

However, it also occurs to me that people at DARPA might have anticipated just these sorts of problems in getting the technology underway.

Perhaps DARPA people were mindful of the supposed fact that, according to an ORV enthusiast, 'in the ORV world there is no real "corporate" research and development' and "a very large amount of development has been done and is still being done by small shops and end-users." It may be that DARPA knows quite well that small shops and end-users are most familiar with wheeled vehicles and are in need of developing appreciation for, and competence in, sophisticated computerized controls. And so perhaps DARPA tailored the current "Grand Challenge" especially for developing small shops' and end-users' appreciation for, and competence in, sophisticated computerized controls.

And thus DARPA may already be planning a subsequent contest where non-wheeled vehicles are involved for much more rugged terrain. In fact, this possibility seems quite plausible considering that the home page for the "Grand Challenge" seems to depict such a non-wheeled, insect-like (or spider-like) vehicle. [Note: the home page has changed; see, for example, the bottom of the "Discussion Forum" page or the "Teams" page for a "page-stretched" version.]

I would like to point out another web page for those who might be interested in the current technological research and development involving "intelligent" computer controls for vehicles. For those who are interested, take a look at <http://www.computer.org/intelligent/articles/intelligent_vehicles.htm>.

---

Some of the "systems" type of questions which need high quality scientific research are: 1) Would designated wilderness areas be flooded by people riding minimal-impact or zero-impact vehicles? 2) If so, or even if only partially or somewhat true in certain limited cases, what would be the actual impacts? And of course, such questions would need to take into account the variety of opinions that people have as to what constitutes an "impact". 3) If such vehicles were restricted to existing ORV areas, what net benefits would there be for the environment? 4) What other supplementary "programs" or regulations might be helpful in improving life and conditions on this planet for humans and the rest of the fauna (and flora, etc.) as well.

Other questions that need research are: 1) How could such minimal-impact vehicles be used to reduce impacts due to the current high-impact horse-packing practices? 2) What would an in-depth profile be of people's values and attitudes concerning wilderness and various degrees of quasi-wilderness; ideally such a profile would include nuances and correlations with other factors and include, perhaps, some credible measure of how well thought out are each person's values and attitudes.

It seems there could be lots and lots of such questions, and it seems that such questions would take a good deal of high quality, sophisticated science and scientific philosophy to deal with. So I imagine it would be appropriate for the federal government to commission such practical research from a variety of perspectives in various universities and "think tanks".

My suggestions for the development of a minimal-impact vehicle avoids emphasis on a law-enforcement-and-legal-battle approach to issues between ORV enthusiasts and environmentalists although such a vehicle would probably eventually require _some_ legal regulation of one sort or another. I would hope that whatever regulation eventually required would be much more palatable to the people being regulated and thus would engender a good deal more respect for the regulation.

And, besides, think of the fun of exploring the remote, exotic places that otherwise only the most athletic hikers and mountaineers can get to.

Richard Haney

hey man, welcome to the board!

I have to admit though, its gonna take me at least a 6 pack to read that sucker in full.. might take a while..

sooo what does it really say in about a 4 sentence paragraph or less that us attention challenged peeps can understand?

In a nutshell,

The government should spend some of our hard earned money on developing a "Zero-impact-vehcile" which would have many uses on the military front but would also be a very useful vehicle domesticly.
For instance, if you had a zero impact vehicle you would be able to traverse many of the millions of acres that are currently closed to the public because no vehicles are allowed in.

Obviously, this sort of vehicle is far off in the future but what this article also serves as is a "vehicle" to bring OHV'ers closer to the Enviros so that possibly a dialog could develop.

I've already seen some enviros react negatively to this article. Because, as we all know, it's not about the plant... it's about power and money, to them...

Vor

I think in theory it is a good idea but asking the government to innovate anything is like asking the government to be innovative. :dance:

So what I get is a 2000 lbs cockroach will not leave an impact right? :roll:
Hmm.

Hey Grant, can you build me a 1000 hp cockroach?? that will kick up the sand like to other?
Isnt part of Off roading the feel for the terrian. The ability manuver within the contraints of the natural habitats?

seems a bit far fetched.. but hey.. :X: :bomb:

You people actually read that? I read the first line and then the last line. Didn't make sense, so I forgot about it.


Andy

:roll: That has got to be the most ignorant article I have ever read! An "insect like" vehicle that leaves no trace and weighs only 300-350lbs. with driver???? Not possible. NOT AT ALL! I don't care what kind of engine/motor it has, it would have to have either a lot of electronics, a lot of hydraulics, or most likely both. It would weigh a thousand pounds or more easily. Any 1000 pound vehicle is going to impact the soil, no question.

QUOTE

:roll: That has got to be the most ignorant article I have ever read! An \"insect like\" vehicle that leaves no trace and weighs only 300-350lbs. with driver???? Not possible.

hell, i weigh over half that amount myself.

somewhere through the fog I remember watching something about volcanos a few years back. They were trying to make some kind of remote vehicle that walked like a spider. It was marginally successful.

Zero Impact:

Mike, that does have impact!!!
The skirt still hits the ground possibly breaking the blades of grass.
The Wind and Exhaust disrupt the natural lay of the land
AND
NOISE.. those things are LOUD!!! BUT a TON O FUN!!!



ZERO impact is nothing ever touching or disrupting the environment. :dis: this includes animals, storms, humans, bugs, etc.. only plants.. :black:


Yeah yeah yeah I know.. Ill go sit in the corner..

A zero impact vehicle, although implausible.. is certainly not impossible! Don't you think it's worth spending a few bucks on?

Vor

I think its impossible to have a "ZERO IMPACT" vehicle.
You name it and I feel I can come up with a way it will impact to the environment.

Its a challenge.. bring it on!!!

I agree with Chummin. Not only do I ride, but I am in to hunting and the outdoors. The 2 go hand in hand when it comes to this topic. We will never be able to come up with something that they will accept. It's like Ringo in the Movie Tombstone. "They got a hole in their heart that they can never fill up no matter how much they hurt us it just won't fill up". Any way I glad to see you guys talking about this. 'Cause you know they got their websites and a hell of a lot of money backen 'em up to stop us from having fun.

:beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: : :vader:

I should note that in another forum where this was proposed the Environmentalists were even MORE against this idea.

I suggested that if the Government changed the law to say that a "Zero-Impact" vehicle could enter lands that are now closed to all vehicles then the public sector would jump in to build those vehicles to take advantage of the new recreational opportunities.
I was told that the vehicle would have to come first, THEN the change in the law.
I thought this really pointed out the differences between our sides.

I mean, what the hell difference does it make? Zero impact is Zero impact... right?

Vor

I believe they already have a zero impact vehicle...
It's called an Airplane :shock: or Helicopter :roll2:

Look to George Lucas for the future! Remember on Endor, Return of the Jedi, Speeders haulin ass through the forest. Awesome! Or Episode 1. Darth Maul cruising Tatoine. Or for you buggy people, remember back to Star Wars. Lukes Land Speeder.
This my friends, is the Future!

Wasn't that a long time ago in galaxy far far away?