Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Battlefield Robots
Alien54 writes "The Pentagon is drafting the Segway two-wheeled scooter as part of a plan to develop battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate with troops. Dean Kamen, the Segway's inventor, says he had no qualms about enlisting his brainchild into the military."
Jonny Five is alive!
I find it particularly amusing that Cartoon Network just had/is having an Iron Giant marathon and this article shows up. :)
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you."
How do you explain to a robot the difference between an enemy and a civilian........ In the middle east a shepard has a beard, a turban and a kalashnikov. Enemy troops has a beard, a turban and a kalashnikov. This seems to me to be another pentagon wanking fantasy. (Now for the offtopic rant part....)Then again this has never troubled the US forces. (see. Panama, Sudan, Afganistan, Iraq, Korea, Vietnam). If only they were to spend as much money and effort on peace. With this you even create new customers for you products.
Ok, we will all concede that losing fewer lives is the goal. However, there is one good part about potential losing lives. It is this, the people of your country (assuming that it is a free country) are not going to tolerate unnecessary loss of life. This keeps most leaders from provoking wars unnecessarily. If the cause is to stop Hitler, people understand that we may take heavy losses, but in the end it is worth is.
If the cause is removing Milosovic from power, people are going to tolerate much fewer losses before they start to demand that we bring our boys home.
Removing this from the battlefield of the future does two things, one it will allow future world leaders to bully less technically advanced countries even more than they do now and two it will increase the amount of terrorism directed at civilians. If I can't kill your people on the battlefield because there are no "people" on the battlefield, I'll do what I have to do to take the war to your "people".
We should proceed with caution.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Dean Kamen mades some useful inventions in his time, but the segway just doesn't seem to meet his list of impressive accolades such as the stair climbing wheelchair and dialysis equipment. Now the military has plans to convert this thing into a militray robot, the idea seems a bit too odd to work. As wonderful as the segway may be for paved sidewalks of the United States, these things are far too slow and bulky to be of much use on the battlefield. Using two large wheels, even with gyroscopic assist, is a bad idea for something that should be as adaptable as a battlefield robot. We realized that wheels were a bad solution to handling varied terrain (hence tanks have treads) a long time ago, why is it suddenly fashionable again? Have the laws of physics suddenly changed? The next step in technology should involve robots with legs (similar to insects for most stable configuration). Though not nearly as efficient as wheels on flat terrain it is quite possibly the most adaptable form of locomotion.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
The simple answer is they are very expendable and can be made very structurally strong.
.5 of a second after it is attacked to lay a burst at it's attacker.
Now the longer answer: A ruggedized sedgeway (or better yet something that can place itself into a permanently low power stable position, eg 3 wheels or more.) would be able to be very rugged, armoured and would be fairly easy to repair. The same can not be said for soldiers. A armoured trash can, can afford to wait until it is attacked before returning fire safe in the fact it is not important, is highly survivable and will probably manage
Now given the fact that mass production sedgeways cost $5000 odd and after you equip it for military purposes probably $50000. It is still a great deal. In fact I can see 10 000 being purchased at the drop of a hat.
Have two or three trundling along as point teams on patrol. (The bad guys can't let em get too close so they become the targets and that exposes the bad guys.) Set them as forward guards and you can keep the potential bad guys back. Make some that are very menacing (Big, black, with big stubby riot guns, maybe some big speakers, Bright strobes and nasty voices) and they could be very successful crowd controllers as well.
Most of the time in guerilla and urban areas they they sit still (unless patrolling) and so you could have 100's of guards set and flagging themselves for attention if something unusual or out of their ROE takes place. So you get 100 guys sitting in a comfy baracks somewhere, controlling, interdicting or at least observing a large area. Rather than 5 times that number actually being out in the thick of it.
Where they fail is in snatch sweeps where house searches are required but even there they can be used to secure rear areas of the searching troops, establish stop points and to act as covering roles or even anti sniper roles.
Some bigger ones can even act as a pack beast for supplies or maybe even crew served weapons. (Is that 50 kilo's of Machine gun and 1500 rounds of ammo weighing you down, just chuck it on the section trashcan) Having the Command element of a platoon gifted with 4 heavy weapon cans would make most soldiers, a lot happier. The extra firepower and much lessened load will be appreciated.
In more regular combat they are given sweep zones and much more liberal ROE. See enemy, (however defined) shoot it if close, otherwise identify them to command and assist in calling in fire.
Obviously development costs are huge to field basic autonamous combat machines. (somewhat less for command guided or standby and command machines) but once the work is done. A nation can probably afford to buy a fairly large number as supplements to their infantry and other forces. For example even at $50000 a copy a 100 000 would cost 5 billion but allow increased flexibility in the order of 30-50 000 additional on the ground troops. With almost certainly lower ongoing costs, much more rapid return to service if damaged ( A sedeway gets a wheel blown off it can be replaced. The same happen to a man and he's not playing soldier anymore.) and seriously reduced political consequences if one is totalled compared to a man, militaries will love them even if they only act as guards and scouts.
The key tech troubles are the power supply, the logic system, the comms system and possibly security. Loco, navigation, observation and weapon handling is effectively doable right now.