High Tech Military – Rosie the Robot Join the Army
Bill Smart is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. With his doctoral student Doug Few, he is working on the next generation of military robotics. Apparently, the US military has set a goal of 2020 to have 30% of the Army made up of robotic forces.
Neither researchers nor the military envision squads of combat-ready “clones and drones” in the style of Star Wars or Isaac Asimov. Rather, Professor Smart explains, they are talking about “autonomous trucks”, bomb detectors and other support systems more accurately referred to as “autonomous systems rather than robots”.
Rosie the Robot Maid A number of different technologies converge in the design and development of military robotic systems. Night vision “eyes,” ultra-sensitive microphone “ears,” and other sensors that pick up sound, heat signatures, and even odors are relayed to an operator at a remote location. With a computer, one or two screens, and a joystick, the commanding soldier has a high-tech scout, bomb squad, cargo carrier, and intelligence gatherer all in one.
When he thinks of “the future of robots,” says Ph.D. candidate Few, it’s always “the Jetsons.” George Jetson never sat down at a computer asking Rosie to clean the house. information. So what we’ve been working on is how we can use the local environment instead of a computer as a task medium for the robot.”
iRobot Corporation’s Packbot is a far cry from Rosie the Robot Maid, in intelligence and onboard prowess, but it’s already working in both Afghanistan and Iraq, delivering materiel and transporting equipment across dangerous terrain. As technology continues to progress, more robots are being deployed sooner in situations considered, at least initially, too dangerous for humans. “When I stood there and looked [a battle-damaged Packbot]I realized that if that robot hadn’t been there, it would have been a child,” says Few. Civilian Applications Police departments are quick to get any military technology they can get their hands on into service. In fact, the “militarization “American law enforcement, which has been gathering strength for at least several decades, has not been an unqualified success in everyone’s eyes.
In the summer of 2007, Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason magazine, tested before the House Crime Subcommittee. “Since the late 1980s,” he told the assembly, “thanks to laws passed by the US Congress, millions of surplus military equipment has been turned over to local police departments across the country. We’re not just talking about computers and office equipment.” Military-grade semi-automatic weapons, armored personnel carriers, tanks, helicopters, planes, and all sorts of other equipment designed for use on the battlefield are now being used on American streets, against American citizens.”
Bomb squad robots, with technology proven in the field at the world’s many military hotspots, have already found their way into many large urban police forces. As technology advances, Packbots and other special military robots will also join the local ranks of US law enforcement. “Academic criminologists,” Balko added, “credit these transfers with the dramatic increase in paramilitary SWAT teams over the last quarter century.”
Private use proliferates One can see the rise of SWAT raids as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on one’s views on law enforcement, subsidiarity, civil rights, and other burning political issues. Far less controversial, however, is the application of military-proven technologies, including robotics, to private purposes such as security and self-defense.
ActivMedia Robotics of Peterborough, NH, makes several “security robots.” PatrolBot and similar mobile detection and surveillance systems function as backups for other fixed systems, while providing additional supplemental data. In many cases, PatrolBot can deploy sensors that are infrequently used or too expensive to install in permanent locations around a facility.
Facility managers for a Hewlett-Packard server need a 3D heat map of the building space, for example. If they install temperature sensors throughout the building, it could interfere with people’s mobility, so PatrolBot carries a pole loaded with sensors to map the temperature in the facility at specific intervals. An added advantage of robots in these types of environments is that they work autonomously, make upgrading facilities unnecessary, and can handle various emergencies without endangering people.
In Roanoke Patrol, VA-based Cybermotion manufactures the Cyberguard line, originally introduced in the mid-1990s. Units can be equipped with various sensors: environmental, infrared, thermal, etc. – and a series of cameras that transmit real-time video via radio or Wi-Fi to a central command location.
Operators can control the camera’s pan, tilt, and zoom functions remotely, and for archival purposes, continuous or time-lapse video can be recorded on a hard drive onboard the robotic vehicle, as well as on the control station. Separately saved copies will ensure that damage to the Cyberguard, whether intentional or accidental, does not destroy any evidence collected up to that point.
Security robots with real-time color video and other Jetson-era capabilities aren’t “the wave of the future,” but they are here and available now. Various types of these robots, while still new and innovative tools for large-area security and other specialized military and law enforcement operations, are not considered a “fix everything” or “magic bullet” in any way.
Ready for prime time? ActivMedia’s marketing materials position its growing family of “bots” as components of a “robust security solution,” enabling businesses and, increasingly, homeowners to improve the odds of successfully dealing with with any “unexpected danger”. With the price of a standard PatrolBot falling from $40,000 to just over half since 2002, more and more small businesses and large households may consider budgeting for such devices.
Adding mobile video surveillance won’t guarantee an improvement in all security systems, but in the right places, these robots can make a difference. A serious cost-benefit analysis needs to be done before writing a check for one of these units, and there are ongoing operating costs, certainly, from various parts that will wear out (wheels, gears, levers, etc.), batteries that must be loaded, control equipment that will need redundancy, etc.
The Next Frontier For savvy entrepreneurs, especially those with large physical plants and wide perimeters, mobile surveillance cameras with a few brains built in can be a smart investment. Others who are less savvy but tech savvy may be convinced to buy PackBot or Cyberguard just because they are early adopters, or want to see if they can control the robot with an iPhone or some other device. .
Now the military and its “preferred vendors” are hard at work arming the robots for battle. We’re not likely to see much of this new technology making its way to consumer and commercial-grade products, at least not anytime soon. Project the trends back a few decades, though, and it’s not hard to imagine Rosie trading in her maid’s apron for a badge and gun. Rosie, the robot police? Watch out, George!
