Combat robots offered as battlefield lifesavers

FORT HOOD, Texas -- Under a searing sun, some of the nation's best defense geeks tried to impress the infantrymen and tankers of the U.S. Army.

They converged on a remote part of Fort Hood recently with robots that responded to voices, giant trucks that didn't need a driver, three-dimensional light and range detectors, unmanned track vehicles with machine guns -- all of it for an event billed as Texas' (and certainly the Army's) first Robotics Rodeo.

The "rodeo" was the brainchild of the Fort Hood commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, a 30-year war fighter and an engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For Lynch, who once built robots in a lab, it comes down to this: They don't die.

In an aggressive campaign to push industry and Army leadership to finish development and get in the field faster, Lynch believes that robots, particularly "smart" robots with autonomous capabilities, could clear areas of roadside bombs, haul supplies, perform long-term surveillance, even augment an infantry platoon with reconnaissance and firepower.

The Fort Hood event, co-hosted by the Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, had 19 companies showing off their prototypes to the military's technology experts -- and most importantly, getting feedback from ordinary soldiers with combat experience.

"It's got to be durable," said Staff Sgt. Jason Wargo, a scout in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and Virginia native. "We're not going to carefully place it in its case. We're going to toss it around. It's going to get left in the back of a Humvee. The maintenance better be easy because I don't know anything about fixing robots. It's got to be easy to use or it will just get left behind."

But Wargo, who returned this year from a 15-month deployment to Iraq, is the first to say there is a place for robots to take the place of soldiers.

"If a robot gets blown up, all we have to do is get another one," he said. Thousands of robots are already working in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Predator drones that have become so crucial in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most of the ground robots are used by bomb-disposal technicians, but they also are used by troops to approach a building and peer in with a camera, search under cars at roadblocks and breach defenses -- activities that Marine Col. Jim Braden calls "dull, dirty and dangerous tasks."

"We're using them to give the soldier or Marine some distance and a greater margin of safety," said Braden, program manager for the military's joint effort to field robotic systems.

Lynch, however, doesn't consider any of them robots.

All the robots currently fielded require a serviceman to operate them like a remote-controlled device. That means the soldier operating the robot has his hands occupied and his head down looking at a screen, which requires still more soldiers to protect him.

Lynch wants smarter robots, autonomous thinkers that can perform on their own. He has made it clear that he wants the proven systems fielded sooner than later, which may be the tallest order given the Defense Department's acquisition process.

In the view of senior commanders present at the field tests, the machines most ready for fielding in Iraq and Afghanistan are unmanned ground vehicles that can drive and navigate on their own. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control of Grand Prairie, Texas, demonstrated its Convoy Active Safety Technology in giant logistics trucks to a group of military leaders, who have all been forced to use large numbers of troops to drive trucks and provide security to get supplies from one base to the next.

Not only is the regular supply mission a drain on personnel and requires thousands of soldiers to deploy just for that purpose, but it exposes soldiers to more risk of roadside bombs.

The Lockheed Martin system uses radar, lasers, cameras and other sensors to allow a five-truck convoy to drive as fast as 50 mph, but only the lead vehicle has to be manned. The others follow, maintain a safe distance, avoid obstacles and will not be affected by sandstorms, said Will Shores, director of program development at Lockheed Martin.

The kits can be placed on any vehicle already in the military inventory for between $20,000 and $40,000, Shores said.

"We're working with the Army to do a trial run in Afghanistan next year," Shores said.

Similarly, the Oshkosh Corp. brought an unmanned "smart" 7-ton truck that it manufactures for the Marine Corps.

The robotic Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement looks in every way like the manned version, except that it, too, uses sensors and computers to make its way from one supply base to another without the need of a single Marine.

"It isn't quite ready, but there are probably specific places where it could be deployed now," said John Beck, chief engineer for unmanned systems.