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USMC Shows Off New Toys
jonerik writes "And speaking of the future of unmanned combat, Wired today has this article on several new toys being developed for the U.S. Marine Corps. The Dragon Eye is a small remote-controlled airplane which can be disassembled and carried in a field pack. The Dragon Runner is a miniature camera-equipped wheeled truck about the size of a shoebox which can be sent into dangerous areas as a scout. The Dragon Warrior is a small unmanned helicopter which looks like a toilet seat with wings. Perhaps most intriguing is a device unofficially dubbed the RoboLobster, which skitters around on eight mechanical legs, detecting and disarming mines. Although the Dragon Eye is scheduled for deployment next year, the other three devices are still in the development stage."
Dragon Warrior? sheesh.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
The Dragon Runner is a miniature camera-equipped wheeled truck about the size of a shoebox which can be sent into dangerous areas as a scout.
What's the betting that the Web will soon be swamped with pop-ups offering to sell us the X10.Com version of these?
I don't want to know how it attacks the enemy.
BTW: Is the rumor true that the Trud Report has signed up with the army ?
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Nooooooooo...
[Insert obligatory BSOD joke]
The escape of Osama Bin Laden and the invisibility
of the Abu Sayyaff in the jungles of the Philippines
show one thing. No amount of high tech weaponry
and no surfeit of surveillance equipment can beat
a human on the ground. After several months of
scrutinizing the tiny island of Basilan, using
satellites, aircraft and what not, no trace
of the kidnapped Burnhams have been detected.
The Abu Sayyaff and their hostages have effectively
vanished.
As the US Marine Corps continues to progress
towards its vision of the modern warrior, I
hope it remembers that human brains and
courage is still more valuable than all the
modern technology in the world.
Sounds a bit noisy to me, personally. I know I'd get pretty suspicious if I was a soldier and saw one coming towards me. Plus, I'd probably take aim at it - I hope they're cheap.
Score:-1, Funny
These new toys are great, but the challenge will be to get these "18 and 19 year old" grunts (I use the term respectfully) to actually use them in battle.
Unless the Marine Corps. has changed recently, no self-respecting Marine will want to be dicking around with an RC car when they are in the middle of combat.
Nevertheless, I applaud the Marines for using technology to its fullest in the battlefield.
Thank you Dave Raggett
So which one is the Second Variety?
Doesn't the USMC run "Toys for Tots?"
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
It looks like technology is starting to catch up with science fiction. When I was a soldier, I wished that someone would invent a small, remote controlled, video camera that could fly like a helicopter. I was never a big fan of detecting the presence of the enemy by getting shot.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
What about the Dragon's Breath (a self-propelled, autonomous microwave for warming field rations) or the Dragon's [censored] (a self-propelled autonomous latrine)?
These are especially important since the Dragon Warrior is unlikely to ever be put into service due to issues with infinite loops in the control software ("Dost thou love me?" "No" "But thou must!"), and a vulnerability to enemy subversion, despite self-destruct failsafes. Also, there is a considerable amount of tuning and calibration that each unit must go through under battlefield conditions, and there aren't always enough slimes and drakees to use for target practice. Finally, budget cuts threaten to drastically under-equip each unit, and simulations show that the operators quickly resort to looting defeated enemies.
When these are issued out at Combined Arms eXercise at 29 Palms, and the geek-infantryman (believe me, they exist, I am one) is told to report to the commanding officer and figure the damn thing out so that it can be used, I'll believe these things are being used.
Still, the point here is that if it's not exceedingly easy to use, it won't get used. If there are lots of little parts that have to go in the case, they're going to get lost. SL-3 gear for night vision gets lost all the time. The PEQ-2 infrared laser sight for the M-16 is a good example. There's a neato little switch that mounts, using adhesive and velcro, to the handguard. We never use it, though. it's supposed to stay in the pouch, but it gets lost. All the little bits and pieces that come with this junk get lost. Just like the little pieces of MoLLE gear, just like the little pieces of SL-3 for anything that comes with little garbage.
A note to you engineers out there designing stuff for us to go kill people with: Make it monolithic. Configurable is nice and stuff, but if there are little parts that can get lost, they will get lost.
It happens with all the stuff we have now; it'll happen with the DragonEye. Which, by the way, I don't ever want to have to hump into an LZ. I bet it doesn't de well wet, either. Well guess what? Grunts get wet and muddy on a sunny day. We're not happy unless we're wet and muddy. This thing isn't going to last long, I surmise. It's going to get broken too much.
"If a Marine can use (Microsoft) Word, he can get this plane to fly."
It looks like you are trying to crash this plane into the ground - would you like me to autoformat your controlled flight into terrain?
I'm the stranger...posting to
Instead of blowing up the robot, it would be cheaper for it to put an explosive on the mine and detonate it after moving away. Radio-controlled explosive is cheaper than a robot.
Battlebots!
The Enterprise needs to get dragonfly technology, I never understood why every time there is a dangerous situation, they send in the top 3 officers ;)
The USMC has had the AeroVironment Pointer for about a decade now. This is a model airplane with a TV camera, small enough to be carried in a backpack. It's Kevlar, and powered by silver-zinc batteries (which, by the way, are great, but cost too much.) Range of a few miles, endurance of maybe an hour. (The maker says 1.5 hours, reports say 30 minutes.) Toss into the air, fly over the hill, and get a small-screen peek at the enemy. Moderately useful, not overdesigned, and reasonably rugged. For example, landing is done by coming in low, pulling up into a stall, cutting the power, and crashing tail-first, the typical model airplane bad landing.
ACtually, the US does use mines, though rarely. The border between north and south korea is covered in mines, as is the area around Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Those two locations are why the US did not sign the mine ban treaty.
When the pentagon drags a mouse over a foreign country and unleashes robotic hell on them, and people dying via remote control, one has to ask how far we are from large machines crunching their way over fields of human skulls.
Is this really where humanity wants to go?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
If you just want to try flying one, we have also have written an OpenGL simulator.
Here's your change to try it without signing up for the Marines.
-- http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/
You know that's what's coming next. Giant killer mecha that will be hijacked by terrorists for their own evil uses.
And only Hideo Kojima will be able to save us.
I guess no one ever told you about atomic weapons, the end of the war with Japan, and the cold war.
Dragon Flyer
I saw this via Apple's homepage... sounds like you can buy your eye in the sky...
Winton
The problem with better weapons is that they cut both ways. The US military may be ahead in the applications of this kind of thing right now, but they're leveraging existing technology, a lot of which is available off the shelf - microcontrollers, MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes, and standard RC gear. How long until terrorists or guerillas are using small unmanned helicopters, planes and cars to deliver explosives inside secure facilities, or to assassinate world leaders?
Your plans to use ground and airborne autonomous robots in combat are indeed impressive. I have to warn you though, that my recent analyses strongly indicate that your entire attack force can be beaten by the first opponent who fields a well-designed clone army, or for that matter a bunch of poorly-armed semi-sentient amphibians and a small boy. Consider yourselves warned.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Using model airplanes as a military tool is very popular these days and some of the more sophisticated ones (such as the X-45) may well be the future of "safe" combat.
However, don't fall into the trap of thinking that the US is the only force to have such combat tools or that this "off the shelf" technology can't be used against targets with the borders of the USA.
Check out The Low Cost Cruise Missile scenario for some insight into the opportunity this stuff gives to half-smart terrorist groups.
When the Marines took Kuwait City in the Gulf Warr, they drove RC worn-out trucks through the "impenetrable" mine fields.
Hey, Mom! Is it beer, yet?
The Marine's perspective on technology can be inferred by their description of their combat knife: It has zero electronics and zero moving parts, it is the most reliable weapon you will carry.
The Marines are very unlikely to lose the proper perspective that the basic Marine rifleman is their most important weapon. As an organization they are extremely mindful of the fact that the character of their people and the training of their people are their most important assets. Historically they have done a good job introducing new technology while keeping their perspective.
For example one of the most important new technologies in modern warfare has been aviation. The Marines embraced aviation but adopted the perspective that Marine aviation exists to help grunts. To become a pilot in the Marines you must first prove yourself as a rifle platoon commander. You may sign up to become a pilot but you start your career going to Officer Candidate School at Quantico where you will learn to be a grunt and how to effectively command grunts.