If you'll all indulge a newbie, I'd like some sanity checking on an idea for a PBEM I'm in.
Namely, robots designed to load, arm, and prep a warplane, hopefully removing much of the need for humans to do the same (dangerous and rough, AFAIK) work. FYI, it's a geopolitical PBEM set in the modern day, in which I play Israel. As such, considerations such as turn-around time (how fast one can get an aircraft from landing at end of mission to heading off on another mission) also figure into this.
In a draft post, I've described it thus:
"It was a rather stubby-looking thing. Starting with small tracks, it was rather wide, proceeding through a cylindrical frame to two long arms that ended with plugs. Notations indicated the plugs could fit grips for fuel hoses, weapons and attachments, or to pull weapons racks. Moving upward, the robot's "head" was composed of infrared and optical sensors, plus an antenna connecting the bot to a remote controller. Multiple loadbots could be controlled by one person in a pinch, with those not directly controlled set to simple automated tasks - Connect the hose to the plane, or slide the bomb onto the ejector rail, then fetch another one and repeat."
The robots would have human controllers to observe and to take over in case of a software failure, but normal operations would be automated. Configuration (for aircraft, weapons, mixes thereof) could be done by squadron-level maintenance units, assisted by intel and planning staffs. All of this would designed for a graphical interface; The basic idea would be that a mission-specific configuration could be created on the fly. A similar open-source process would occur here, as well. All of the configuration activity would be able to occur on your average laptop, hooked to a remote control (low-freq R/F, I suppose; Limited range, but how big is an airbase's tarmac?).
Macro-level stuff (which aircraft to work on, what configuration to swap each aircraft to, etc) would be controlled by the human operators from the same application; Similar to the configuration module, this would run off a laptop.
Now, the actual specs for the loadbot (gotta think up a better name). My comments for here (not in the draft post) are in brackets.