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Robot or Not?
Army Dismisses Completely Soldierless Battlefield
Stories by William Matthews
string of 20-ton Army trucks barrels
stis, Va., and the Maneuver Center of Excellence at
along a rural Georgia highway at 40
Fort Benning.
mph with no one at the wheel, yet
Humans Will Still Have Jobs
the trucks obey traffic rules, swerve
The Army envisions a future replete with roto avoid obstacles and stop when a
bots, but don’t look for the “Terminator”-type
child darts into the street.
humanoid killer robots so often hyped in
Two pilotless planes circle over a town, searchheadlines and portrayed in movies.
ing the streets below for their target.
Nor will there be any soldierless batWhen they spot it, they radio GPS
tlefields where robots fight it out
coordinates to a driverless SUV,
among themselves, the Army’s
which moves in for the intercept.
top robotics experts say.
A squad of soldiers crouches
Instead, the Army’s robots
behind a protective wall a short
will serve more like moddistance from the building
ern-day hunting dogs and
they’re about to storm. They
pack animals: They will
unpack CLARK—the Comprovide sharper senses
mon Light Autonomous
and stronger backs for
Robotics Kit—pulling out
their human masters.
a palm-size quadcopter
They won’t be making
with a surveillance camimportant decisions
era and a small tankfor themselves.
like robot that rolls on
“The Army is not
treads and can climb
looking to replace
stairs. These microsoldiers with rorobots will move in first
bots,” said Col. Christto show soldiers what’s
opher Cross, research and
around the next corner and what’s in
development chief at ARthe next room. The soldiers will leave
CIC. “We are looking for ways to intebehind a small stationary sensor to
grate autonomous systems” so they
monitor their egress route.
can extend the reach of soldiers and reIncreasingly sophisticated robots
duce the risks soldiers face.
are poised to take over some of the
Paul Rogers, director of the U.S.
Army’s most dangerous, dull and
Army Tank Automotive Research,
dirty jobs. Already they search for
Development and Engineering Cenburied roadside bombs, perform aerter in Warren, Mich., agreed: Robots
ial reconnaissance and watch over
will “augment the performance
base perimeters. Driverless convoys
and effectiveness” of soldiers, not
have passed increasingly complicated
replace them.
tests and are on the verge of being
That’s happening already.
combat ready.
Cross estimated that 800 solThe pilotless planes that teamed
diers are alive today bewith the driverless SUV proved their
Atlas Robot image courtesy of Boston Dynamics
cause robots instead of solcapability at Fort Benning, Ga., in
diers were sent to destroy
2010. Meanwhile, the backpack collection of roimprovised explosive devices
bots for CLARK is being assembled by the Army Capabiliin Afghanistan.
ties Integration Center (ARCIC) at Joint Base Langley-Eu-
A
November 2014 ■ ARMY 35
Soldiers maneuver an iRobot Packbot 510
over rubble during a robotics class at the
National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
U.S. Army/Sgt. Kimberly Hackbarth
What Can Robots Do?
Reducing soldier casualties is the
main motivation behind the driverless
convoy. By 2020, and possibly sooner,
“we believe we can take the soldier
completely out of the trucks” that deliver water, food, fuel and ammunition to combat outposts, Rogers said.
Army statistics indicate that one of
every eight soldiers injured or killed
in Iraq was aboard a supply convoy.
The Army may also deliver supplies with unmanned helicopters. The
Marine Corps experimented with that
in Afghanistan, using robotic K-MAX
helicopters to deliver ammunition,
food and water to forward operating
bases when it was too dangerous to
send trucks or manned helicopters.
By 2025, the Army expects to have robots that can operate in areas contaminated by chemical, biological or nuclear
materials, Rogers said. Unmanned helicopters may deliver
tracked or wheeled robots equipped with cameras and sensors to conduct reconnaissance and environmental sampling. The robots may even have arms to recover casualties
from areas that are too hazardous for humans to enter.
A decade after that, soldiers may be operating with a robotic “wingman,” Cross said.
Under the wingman concept, robots are controlled by a
human operator. Equipped with cameras, sensors and
weapons ranging from machine guns to rockets, the robots
would be sent into “very nonpermissive environments”
while their human operators remain behind in relative
safety, Rogers said.
Larger robots are also anticipated. “A platoon today has
four vehicles and all are manned,” Cross said. “In the future, a platoon could have eight vehicles—four manned
and four unmanned.” He said the unmanned vehicles
would have “similar lethality to a tank” or a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and could carry nonlethal weapons as well.
got to make sure you control it,” said Rickey Smith, director of the Information Integration Directorate at ARCIC.
“There can be no decision to kill without a human in the
loop.”
That has been U.S. policy since 2012, when DoD issued
Directive 3000.09, which states: “Autonomous and semiautonomous weapon systems shall be designed to allow
commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels
of human judgment over the use of force.”
The Army already employs thousands of robots. Most
are controlled by soldiers using wired or wireless controllers. Some are semi-autonomous, meaning they can
make some decisions for themselves, such as flying or driving from one predetermined point to another, or returning home when they complete a mission or when they lose
contact with their controllers.
Those decisions, however, have been programmed into
the robots by their human operators. Even sophisticated robots like those in driverless convoys are acting on instructions programmed by humans when they steer around obstacles and brake for pedestrians.
Autonomy at Issue
Humans Remain in Control
Nevertheless, the Army draws the line at building robots
that could kill on their own.
It’s fine to have a deadly robotic wingman, “but you’ve
William Matthews is a freelance writer who specializes in military and technology issues. In addition to writing for magazines and websites, he has been a staff writer for Defense
News, Federal Computer Week, Army Times Publishing
Co. and several newspapers. He is based in suburban Washington, D.C.
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ARMY ■ November 2014
Regarding true autonomy—when a robot is able to evaluate a situation and decide what to do about it—“we’ve
got a long way to go” before that will be possible, Smith
said. Also, it’s not clear that fully autonomous robots are
desirable.
“The notion that we just turn them all loose—I don’t see
the United States ever saying we’re going to let the machine make all the decisions,” Smith said.
Even the autonomous convoys raise difficult questions,
he said. “What’s the operational benefit? What’s the tactical benefit? When a child gets run over, who’s going to be
Proceeding Carefully
Caution prevailed in 2007, when the Army sent armed
SWORDS—Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance
Detection System—robots to Iraq for testing in a realistic
combat environment.
The 3-foot-high, roughly 100-pound robots traveled on
tank-like treads and were able to climb stairs, surmount
rock piles and crawl over barbed wire, according to their
manufacturer, Foster-Miller, Inc. Armed with cameras and
machine guns, the robots were controlled wirelessly by a
soldier from as far as a half-mile away.
When they got to Iraq, however, the SWORDS robots were
forbidden to fire. The Army had imposed the no-shooting restriction after a 2005 incident in which a SWORDS robot
moved without having been given a command, said Robert
Testa, technical lead at the Remote Weapons Branch in the
Army’s Armament Integration Division at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
The errant movement was traced to a loose wire in an
operating control unit, Testa said. “At all times, the gun
was in safe mode,” but the glitch left the Army still gunshy two years later in Iraq.
The SWORDS robots still proved useful in combat, Testa
said. Using the robots’ cameras instead of their guns, soldiers “sent them down the road to look for bad guys.”
The experimental SWORDS program was discontinued,
but the Army benefitted from lessons learned, Testa said.
“We incorporated a whole bunch of safety features,” including redundant wiring, into successor robots.
The cautious approach to employing robots makes
sense, Cross said. “We’re still truly in an experimental
stage. It would be nice to take this capability and put it in
the force,” but many questions remain unanswered.
“We don’t know,” Cross said. It will take “quite a bit of
experimentation to understand” how robots are going to
fit in. “It’s going to take time, and we have to be patient so
we get it right.”
But Robert Finkelstein, an expert on military robots and
president of Robotic Technology Inc., thinks the Army is
moving too slowly. “We need to get some of this stuff out
in the field to get some actual experience with it,” he said.
“My view is that the machines will be a lot better at this
than people.”
He contends that by 2035, it should be possible to have a
battlefield with almost no human combatants. He envisions
battles—conventional and asymmetric—being fought by
thousands or even tens of thousands of robots.
Unmanned ground vehicles, some the size of Humvees
or bigger, would collaborate with unmanned aircraft to
conduct reconnaissance, acquire targets and attack.
UAVs may be the simpler part. Communicating with vehicles in the air “is relatively easy and there are not a lot of
obstacles” for UAVs to run into, Finkelstein said. Operating on the ground presents more challenges. There are lots
of obstacles, terrain can be difficult and there are line-ofsight problems that make communication harder. Ground
U.S. Army/Sgt. Lorie Jewell
responsible—the person who programmed the convoy?
The guy who built the sensor on the truck? There are still
some policy issues we have to come to grips with.”
In addition, adding robots to the ranks won’t necessarily
reduce the number of human soldiers. The Air Force has
discovered, for example, that it takes a crew of three to fly
a Predator-like unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—pilot,
sensor operator and mission coordinator—plus additional
personnel to maintain, launch and land the remotely piloted aircraft.
For the Army, in regard to replacing combat soldiers
with robots—“I’ve not heard anyone suggest that,” said
Michael Barnes of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s
Human Research and Engineering Directorate at Aberdeen
Proving Ground, Md. “Unmanned systems could actually
increase number of soldiers needed.”
Thus, the Army isn’t rushing to embrace robots.
Advances Must Be Made
Liability matters aside, if using robots means fewer human casualties, would that make wars more likely? Will
robots require a multitude of mechanics and communications specialists?
The Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection
System, a weapons platform mounted to a Talon robot, allows soldiers to fire small arms remotely from as far as 1,000 meters away.
November 2014 ■ ARMY 37
Military Robots: Future Possibilities
Today’s robots disarm roadside bombs, keep watch
over combat outposts and search buildings for dangers
before soldiers enter. Tomorrow’s generation will do a
lot more.
In the near term—by 2020 or so—look for:
Driverless vehicles. The Army and Lockheed Martin
have shown that driverless Army trucks can drive 40
mph in a convoy, obey traffic laws, avoid obstacles and
stop for pedestrians. They’re guided by GPS, radar, lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) systems, and other
sensors. They could be delivering water, food, ammunition and fuel to troops by 2020.
Robotic mules. The Army is testing wheeled or legged
vehicles that can carry hundreds of pounds of supplies,
follow verbal and visual commands of their soldier
overseers, and recharge batteries.
Micro-robots. Palm-sized—and even smaller—robots
can fly and crawl ahead of soldiers and beam back
video reconnaissance images.
In the longer term—2035 and later:
Robotic wingmen. Robots armed with machine guns,
grenade launchers and rockets may accompany soldiers
into battle. Some may be as small as a lawn mower, others as big as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Armed with
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ARMY ■ November 2014
day and night cameras and other sensors, they will be
sent ahead to assess the threat and engage the enemy.
They’ll be able to navigate around and over obstacles
with little or no guidance from their human companions. Only humans, connected wirelessly to the robots,
will be able to fire the weapons.
U.S. Army
U.S. Army/Arthur McQueen
orders, they don’t need sleep, food or
pay, and no one mourns when a robot
is destroyed.
Technology is not the main impediment to building a much more robotic
military, Finkelstein said. “We could
do it right now with current technology, but we need to have the motivation to do it,” he said. “It took decades
for UAVs to be appreciated by the military. The ground stuff is pretty much
where UAVs were 20 years ago.”
Finkelstein attributed the Army’s
slow embrace of robots less to caution
than to “normal inertia” and “ricebowl issues” such as who in the Army
gets more of the budget and who controls the programs.
Robots are coming nonetheless, he
The InstantEye unmanned aircraft system allows remote obsaid. “Whether the military wants it
servation of areas with video streamed back to the source.
or not, by 2020 there will be the commercial advent of the driverless car.
robots “would have to have a higher level of autonomy,” That will be disruptive and transformative technology.
he said—but not too much.
What will stop militants from getting it? What will stop
Finkelstein agreed that humans must remain in control them from weaponizing autonomous vehicles? Then they
of military robots. “Humans would have to tell ground ve- won’t need true believers who are willing to blow themhicles to fire or not,” he said, but he and others stress the selves up,” Finkelstein said.
advantages of robots: They’re unafraid of death, they obey
Will the Army need a robot to respond to that?
✭
A convoy of riderless trucks winds through the Department
of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina during
an Army demonstration of autonomous vehicles in May.