Tachikoma - Design

Design

Tachikoma are as large as an average sedan, are painted blue and have four "eyes" fitted on the surface of their bodies. Three are on the "head" and one is beneath the abdomen. Each eye has three pinholes, loosely resembling a bowling ball. These eyes sometimes become expressive in the typical anime style. Tachikoma are controlled by individual AIs, are capable of speech and generally exhibit a childish, curious, joyful and active personality, although they are consummate professionals in the field. They normally operate as independent units and receive orders from human agents, but they can also be directly piloted from a cockpit in their abdomen. Its design is implicitly based on that of the jumping spider in terms of bio-mechanical modelling, and system technical design was based on the Fuchikoma.

Tachikoma have four legs and two arms. They can move by walking, or they can drive at high speed by using the wheeled footpads on each of their four legs. Each wheel appears to be angled and omnidirectional, allowing the Tachikomas to move in any direction with their drive system, which can control all degrees of freedom in its task space. Other abilities of the Tachikoma include jumping great distances, sticking to vertical or inverted surfaces, engaging a thermoptic camouflage mechanism, and grappling/rappelling using their adhesive string launchers. Tachikoma maintain control of their legs while using wheels to drive down a road, and shift their weight around turns. They can also roll briefly on to two legs while driving to avoid an obstacle or pass through a narrow space. To make balance easier, they can move their heavy abdomens with a Ball joint.

Standard Tachikoma equipment includes a 7.62x51mm light machine gun mounted in the right arm, a secondary weapon hardpoint in the "snout" (a 50 mm grenade launcher, capable of launching both explosive and gas grenades which can be replaced by a six-barrelled 12.7x99mm Gatling gun), a universal cybernetic connector on an extensible, prehensile cable in the left arm, liquid wires that can be used for grappling, rappelling or for restraining purposes and a built-in thermoptic camouflage system.