Robots for No Man's Land

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Stryker is an 18-ton infantry vehicle, already deployed by the U.S. army in places such as Iraq. Right now, it has human drivers. But that will no longer be the case by 2010, when it will be driven by a robot. Today, the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second. 'Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body -- processes that data, and makes instant judgments on how to act and where to go.' These robots are developed by General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Inc. (GDRSI), which received $185 million last November to build between 30 and 60 automated-navigation prototypes to be used in all kinds of military vehicles. This overview contains more details, references and photographs."

Comments

Stryker?

[wally mean monkey]

Where have I heard that name before? Stryker, Stryker, Stryker...

Re:Stryker?

[ad0gg]

Billy, do you like movies about gladiators?

Re:Stryker?

[Wyatt Earp]

For me, Sands of Iwo Jima comes to mind

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041841/
Sgt. John M. Stryker

But actually the name comes from two Medal of Honor citations
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohiib1.htm

"Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company E, 513th Parachute Infantry, 17th Airborne Division. Place and date: Near Wesel, Germany, 24 March 1945. Entered service at: Portland, Oreg. Birth. Portland, Oreg. G.O. No.: 117, 11 December 1945. Citation. He was a platoon runner, when the unit assembled near Wesel, Germany after a descent east of the Rhine. Attacking along a railroad, Company E reached a point about 250 yards from a large building used as an enemy headquarters and manned by a powerful force of Germans with rifles, machineguns, and 4 field pieces. One platoon made a frontal assault but was pinned down by intense fire from the house after advancing only 50 yards. So badly stricken that it could not return the raking fire, the platoon was at the mercy of German machine gunners when Pfc. Stryker voluntarily left a place of comparative safety, and, armed with a carbine, ran to the head of the unit. In full view of the enemy and under constant fire, he exhorted the men to get to their feet and follow him. Inspired by his fearlessness, they rushed after him in a desperate charge through an increased hail of bullets. Twenty-five yards from the objective the heroic soldier was killed by the enemy fusillades. His gallant and wholly voluntary action in the face of overwhelming firepower, however, so encouraged his comrades and diverted the enemy's attention that other elements of the company were able to surround the house, capturing more than 200 hostile soldiers and much equipment, besides freeing 3 members of an American bomber crew held prisoner there. The intrepidity and unhesitating self-sacrifice of Pfc. Stryker were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service."

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohviet2.htm

"Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Loc Ninh, Republic of Vietnam, 7 November 1967. Entered service at: Throop, N.Y. Born: 9 November 1944, Auburn, N.Y. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp4c. Stryker, U.S. Army, distinguished himself while serving with Company C. Sp4c. Stryker was serving as a grenadier in a multicompany reconnaissance in force near Loc Ninh. As his unit moved through the dense underbrush, it was suddenly met with a hail of rocket, automatic weapons and small arms fire from enemy forces concealed in fortified bunkers and in the surrounding trees. Reacting quickly, Sp4c. Stryker fired into the enemy positions with his grenade launcher. During the devastating exchange of fire, Sp4c. Stryker detected enemy elements attempting to encircle his company and isolate it from the main body of the friendly force. Undaunted by the enemy machinegun and small-arms fire, Sp4c. Stryker repeatedly fired grenades into the trees, killing enemy snipers and enabling his comrades to sever the attempted encirclement. As the battle continued, Sp4c. Stryker observed several wounded members of his squad in the killing zone of an enemy claymore mine. With complete disregard for his safety, he threw himself upon the mine as it was detonated. He was mortally wounded as his body absorbed the blast and shielded his comrades from the explosion. His unselfish actions were responsible for saving the lives of at least 6 of his fellow soldiers. Sp4c. Stryker's great personal bravery was in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army."

Yes, but will it fit on a frickin' shark?

[Tackhead]

> the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second.

Yes, but will it fit on a frickin' shark? Is that too much to ask?

You are perfectly safe

[ENOENT]

There is no danger of these 18 ton robotic war machines going berserk and killing everyone around them. None at all. Really. You should all feel secure in the knowledge that they were programmed by the lowest bidder.

Obligatory quote

[senatorpjt]

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.

Re:Obligatory quote

[LadyMayhem]

as much as this might be just a random quote... it could very well be reality in a coming years. I think eventually will wind up following the path of nuclear weaponry. With no human deaths it would be more an economic case of who could support such a battle; possibility turning war into a rather large costly game of chess. Only once the robotic defenses were broken could anything be achieved.

Then again, what else is new, thats what we've been doing with people for years... who ever can send bigger better forces wins.

You would think eventually people could reason out better ways to deal with conflicts than war... that money could be going to a myriad of other things, but no we're making smart tanks (granted the technology could be useful, i just dont agree with the purpous)

40-pound computer system

[jeffmock]

"Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body --"

You know it's got to be powerful when compute power is measured in pounds...

jeff

Re:40-pound computer system

[Space cowboy]

"You know it's got to be powerful when compute power is measured in pounds.."

I don't know, being from the UK, I've always measured computer power in pounds (sterling :-)

Simon

Mimicking human behavior?

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

In the future, Stryker will learn more tactical behaviors mimicking a human's, like running and hiding in trees or behind hills in the presence of enemies.

I wonder, will they teach it to wet its circuits as well?

Re:Mimicking human behavior?

[happyfrogcow]

You miss the point though. They want it to run and hide behind trees!!?? What kind of sissy, daffodil of a robot is this?! I want my robots to eat trees and then eat the target it was set to destroy.

hide behind trees... might as well stick a daisy in it's hair and give it a bong!

trees. humph.

Re:Mimicking human behavior?

[andih8u]

You'd think the enemy could spot an 18 ton vehicle trying to hide behind a tree.

Does war become cheap?

[ajiva]

Lets say the US has a fully automated robotic army. Ignorning the whole "SkyNet" issue, does this mean making war is now a no brainer? Because if American's don't have to die, do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want? I for one think that this will change the world more than the Atom bomb did.

Re:Does war become cheap?

[cnkeller]

Because if American's don't have to die, do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want?

Unless we invent a new type of microchip, we're probably only going to kick ass in countries without access to EMP technology.

Re:Does war become cheap?

[TKinias]

scripsit cybercuzco:

no, because you cant occupy a country with robots. You need people on the ground, working intelligence, getting among the people, all that hearts and minds stuff you hear so much about. Making friends with the natives can NEVER be done by robots. Plus not all the natives are friendly, so there will always be a need for the infantryman or MP on the ground in the streets. Robot armies might be good against conventional armies, but they suck at human to human contact.

You know, I was just about to post something very similar. It's the standard rebuttal to the airpower fanboys: you can have all the toys you want, but you will always need an 18-year-old with a gun to hold the terrain.

I just realized, though, that the argument sounds eerily like that made by the horse cavalry officers after WWI. They argued that these new `tank' things were great and certainly had their uses, but there were things horse cavalry could do that tanks never could -- like operating in rough terrain, long-range reconnaissance away from supply lines, etc. I've read essays written by horse-cav folks from as late as the 1950s arguing that the U.S. army was idiotic to have gotten rid of horses altogether, and that the fact the Russians still had horse cav was going to be a big disadvantage to the U.S. in WWIII.

This is clearly not an exactly analogous situation, but it's something to think about.

FWIW, old-timers in the Royal Navy made a similar argument about steam power in the mid to late 1800s. Battleships retained sails for a long time, because the idea that a fleet would rely totally on steam seemed inconceivable...

Re:Does war become cheap?

[Animats]

That's an unusually insightful comment.

There's considerable military interest in small, cheap sensor platforms, from robots to "smart dust". Most of this stuff doesn't work, and much of it founders on the problems of how to power the gadgets. But someday it probably will work.

Quantity has a quality all its own. Even if the stuff isn't all that effective on a per unit basis, it may become possible to overwhelm an enemy with sheer production power. We can't yet release millions of little robots in Afghanistan, all looking for bin Laden. But the first kills by robotic air vehicles have already happened there.

The future of war in cities and jungles may involve huge flocks of robotic birds. Most just watch. Some kill. All report back and work together.

Save the hubble...

[Tarwn]

Ok, so they can build multi-purpose, multi-terrain robots that have to make life or death decisions with automatic weapons, but they can't make a couple to send up on an unmanned probe to fix the hubble? There's something wrong with the math here...

Re:Save the hubble...

[goatasaur]

Compare the popularity of the show "BattleBots" with, say, "Boring Robots that Fix Boring Stuff".

I think my point is made.

What about radio control?

[Nakito]

Wouldn't it make more sense to use radio control by human operators, rather than autonomous on-board robots? Can the on-board robot really deal with every possible circumstance? Does it have enough "judgment" to improvise? Isn't human control simpler and hence more robust?

Infantry never going away

[Tassach]

Quoth the article:

"Well before the end of the century, there will be no people on the battlefield," said Robert Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Management and Technology.

Dollars to doughnuts says Dr. Bob has never served in the military. Nothing will ever replace a guy with a rifle. Planes, tanks, nuclear weapons, and a whole raft of other innovations were supposed to make the common infantryman obsolete. Guess what, the grunt is still around. Today's infantryman has a lot of tools to make his job easier and make each man more effective, but in the end no matter how fancy your technology it all comes down to a guy with a weapon in his hand standing on a piece of land saying "I'm here to stay". That hasn't changed since the first Australiopithicus picked up a pointy stick, and it probably never will.

Re:Infantry never going away

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

Reminds me of Starship troopers.

Even though they were the least respected and sophisticated class, it was the Mobile Infantry that got things done.

Heinlein isn't the only one who stuck with infantry in the future. The truth is that nothing we create can replace a man (or woman) in the field.

And if we do manage to create something that can carry out sophisticated reasoning and creative tactics, it sure as hell won't stick around to work for us.

Swarm

[rjelks]

On a related note, these military robots use "swarm technology" to mimic a group of ants or other "swarm" animals. Kind of a cool approach to A.I. At least it's not nanotechnology like in the (bad) novel by Michael Crichton.

FAQ about Stryker

[mrmeval]

http://www.johnringo.com/stryker.htm

This article/FAQ is very unkind to the Stryker.

Why The Stryker???

[aluminumcube]

For those of you who haven't kept up with the Stryker, it's the latest blundering troop transport hardware that was originally a good idea, but got turned into a scary pile of US soldier killing metal.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/con gress/ 2003_rpt/stryker_reality_of_war.pdf

Highlights?

- Designed to be transportable by a C-130, but can't.
- Designed for the modern urban battlefield, but too big to make a U-turn on even the widest streets.
- Designed to face the weapons of our enemies, but the armor cannot withstand Rocket Propelled Grenades (a hugely prolific weapon in Iraq and Afganistan, even now).

To top it all off, the light tank varient of the Stryker (which the entire Stryker Brigade concept relies upon for support) cannot fire it's weapon if infantry troops are within 200' (the muzzle blast will fry them due to the huge compensator needed) and the cannon cannot be fired off to the side of the vehicle, or the recoil will knock it over. What a great piece of equipment!

Not to hijack the thread, but this is just another attempt for General Dynamics to get some good press out of a complete piece of shit program that is endangering the lives of the grunts who are forced to work with it.

I don't think that this will happen in 2010...

[wbattestilli]

but it will happen and an interesting danger arises with this revolution in military tech.

Currently, governments and militaries are limited by what they can do because they need citizens to power the military machine.

Once you remove the need for large quantities of citizens two problems arise:

1. Robots will have no problems killing ANYBODY that it's controller tells it to. In the US at least, millitary coup is improbable because soldiers == citizens and would probably not attack the general population if ordered to do so. Robots don't have families and ethics.

2. Wars are currently limited by public opition. When our sons and daughters are no longer dying, the public will have much less to worry about when attacking somebody. With robots , we (the US) may have already started fighting with Syria, Libia, Iran...

big deal

[lonb]

"...the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second"

Big deal! The taxi driver I had today is a ladies scanner.. He checks out up to 120 girls per second while driving, plus he talks on the cell phone, listens to some foreign music, and navigates the mean streets of NYC -- all while avoiding the I.N.S.

pork

[0WaitState]

This is the same Stryker that has such thin armor around the enormous wheel wells that machine-gun bullets can penetrate, would kill its own crew if the turret howitzer were fired, and is best taken out via a simple molotov cocktail setting fire to its tires. It is intended to be air-deployed, but is so close to the weight margin that some armor had to be eliminated. In some configurations the Stryker has to be split across 3 planes and assembled on-site. Oh, and the thing is the size of a school bus--just what you want in urban situations requring manouverability, which is supposedly among its missions.

The Stryker is a mistake--I can see why they'd bolt the robot onto it in order to keep funding going, or to mask the sunk cost on this turkey. I couldn't find the PDF detailing these problems, so try this link: stryker problems Right now it's most interesting as an example of the strength of momentum some defense procurement contracts have.

Re:pork

[0WaitState]

Stryker's armor is heavier than the armored version of the hummer, but not so armored as the Bradley, by intent.

Umm, it's not so armored as an M113A either, and lacks internal compartmentalization. The Stryker wastes an insane amount of weight on independent drive to each of 8 wheels, leaving little margin for armor if it is to be carried by a C130. Comparing it with a HumVee costing 1/10th as much is idiotic, especially when you consider that a C130 can carry THREE HumVees in roll-off configuration whereas it can carry a single Stryker only with the ammo and parts stored separately.

The sort of machine gun caliber that can penetrate the wheel wells are only mounted on aircraft

My mistake saying machine-gun--the wheel well armor isn't even rated vs 7.62 mm rounds--an AK47 can penetrate.

Now, I'd like to see you design a tank that can go where the Stryker can. Ain't gonna happen. You add more armor and it will sink in the sand.

Where can an 18 ton tracked vehicle not go that a Stryker can? I'll take a tracked Bradley in the sand over the wheeled Stryker any day, and so would you. The Bradley and M1 are both known to be 10mph faster off-road than the Stryker. And as far as cheap air-deployable fire support, give me an M8. Strykers in combat are targets, not weapons platforms.

Laser Radar, not Laser AND Radar

[Dashing Leech]

Army's newest infantry vehicles, is fitted with a "ladar" scanner, the equivalent of a mounted pair of eyes that see by emitting 400,000 laser and radar beams

Just to correct this, "Ladar" (aka "Lidar", "Laser Radar") does not emit radar signals. It only emits laser pulses and measures the time-of-flight of the light signal (sometimes uses phase shift of laser pulses for better precision). I'm betting the reporter heard "Laser Radar" as "Laser and Radar". Or perhaps they have a separate radar unit.

I'm also curious about the 400,000 points per second. There are some experimental flash (aka scannerless) ladars that get some pretty good rates, but not that many and AFAIK this isn't one of them. The best I can find on the web is that the Stryker Ladars can get up to 60,000 range samples per second. I'm guessing the 400,000 is actually pulses, but it can take many pulses to make a single measurement depending on the type of ladar and the range resolution.