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ROBOT DEMONSTRATION

– U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Steven Harris,

from Explosive Ordnance Disposal Flight,

Civil Engineer Squadron,

shows children how the F6A Andros robot operates

during Operation Bug-Out at Eielson Air Force Base,

Alaska, July 29, 2006.

 

U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Jonathan Snyder

U.S. Department of Defense

http://www.defenselink.mil/
DODCMSShare/HomePagePhoto/2006-08/hires_060729-F-4127S-418.jpg - broken link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS),

a transformable armed robot,

is tested outside of QinetiQ Foster Miller North America robotics

of Waltham, Massachusetts on April 8, 2009.

 

Photograph: Essdras M Suarez

Globe Staff

 

More Robots

Boston Globe > Big Picture

 August 12, 2009

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/more_robots.html - broken link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colin M. Angle of iRobot

steers a PackBot up a set of stairs

by remote control at company headquarters

in Burlington, Mass.

 

Photograph: Robert Spencer

for The New York Times

 

A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield

NYT

February 16, 2005

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/
technology/new-model-army-soldierrolls-closer-to-battle.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building the Autonomous Machine

NYT    7 May 2015

 

 

 

Building the Autonomous Machine

Video        Robotica        The New York Times        7 May 2015

 

Navy robotics engineers are working

to develop autonomous tools that can integrate with other technologies.

But in field tests, the autonomous future still seems far away.

 

Produced by: Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper and Emma Cott

Read the story here: http://nyti.ms/1cbE0wb

Watch more videos at: http://nytimes.com/video

 

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxu35XlqLXA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

robot        USA

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/04/28/
476055707/weighing-the-good-and-the-bad-of-autonomous-killer-robots-in-battle

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/05/
412086918/the-pentagon-wants-these-robots-to-save-the-day

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/
science/making-robots-mimic-the-human-hand.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/
science/28robot.html

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/
technology/new-model-army-soldierrolls-closer-to-battle.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

weaponised robots        UK

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/20/
part-of-the-kill-chain-how-can-we-control-weaponised-robots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iRobot Corporation (iRobot) designs and builds robots.        USA

 

The Company's home care robots

perform time-consuming domestic chores

while its government and industrial robots

perform tasks,

such as battlefield reconnaissance

and bomb disposal,

multi-purpose tasks

for local police and first responders,

and long-endurance oceanic missions.

 

It sells its robots to consumers

through a range of distribution channels,

including chain stores

and other national retailers,

and through its on-line store,

and to the United States military

and other government agencies globally.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/irobot-corporation/index.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/topic/company/
irobot-corporation

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/technology/for-irobot-the-future-is-getting-closer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

robot soldier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bomb-disposal robot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

killer robot        UK

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/17/
terminators-drone-strikes-mod-ethics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

killer robot        USA

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/
world/robot-drone-ban.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/
science/autonomous-weapons-artificial-intelligence.html

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/04/28/
476055707/weighing-the-good-and-the-bad-of-autonomous-killer-robots-in-battle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

autonomous killer weapons        USA

 

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/18/
630146884/ai-innovators-take-pledge-against-autonomous-killer-weapons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

machine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

automaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

be remote-controlled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nanotechnology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

at M.I.T.

 

https://www.csail.mit.edu/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bomb-sniffing robot        USA

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-military-robots_N.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield

NYT

February 16, 2005

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/
technology/new-model-army-soldierrolls-closer-to-battle.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corpus of news articles

 

War > Arms > Robots

 

 

 

War Machines:

Recruiting Robots for Combat

 

November 27, 2010

The New York Times

By JOHN MARKOFF

 

FORT BENNING, Ga. — War would be a lot safer, the Army says, if only more of it were fought by robots.

And while smart machines are already very much a part of modern warfare, the Army and its contractors are eager to add more. New robots — none of them particularly human-looking — are being designed to handle a broader range of tasks, from picking off snipers to serving as indefatigable night sentries.

In a mock city here used by Army Rangers for urban combat training, a 15-inch robot with a video camera scuttles around a bomb factory on a spying mission. Overhead an almost silent drone aircraft with a four-foot wingspan transmits images of the buildings below. Onto the scene rolls a sinister-looking vehicle on tank treads, about the size of a riding lawn mower, equipped with a machine gun and a grenade launcher.

Three backpack-clad technicians, standing out of the line of fire, operate the three robots with wireless video-game-style controllers. One swivels the video camera on the armed robot until it spots a sniper on a rooftop. The machine gun pirouettes, points and fires in two rapid bursts. Had the bullets been real, the target would have been destroyed.

The machines, viewed at a “Robotics Rodeo” last month at the Army’s training school here, not only protect soldiers, but also are never distracted, using an unblinking digital eye, or “persistent stare,” that automatically detects even the smallest motion. Nor do they ever panic under fire.

“One of the great arguments for armed robots is they can fire second,” said Joseph W. Dyer, a former vice admiral and the chief operating officer of iRobot, which makes robots that clear explosives as well as the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. When a robot looks around a battlefield, he said, the remote technician who is seeing through its eyes can take time to assess a scene without firing in haste at an innocent person.

Yet the idea that robots on wheels or legs, with sensors and guns, might someday replace or supplement human soldiers is still a source of extreme controversy. Because robots can stage attacks with little immediate risk to the people who operate them, opponents say that robot warriors lower the barriers to warfare, potentially making nations more trigger-happy and leading to a new technological arms race.

“Wars will be started very easily and with minimal costs” as automation increases, predicted Wendell Wallach, a scholar at the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and chairman of its technology and ethics study group.

Civilians will be at greater risk, people in Mr. Wallach’s camp argue, because of the challenges in distinguishing between fighters and innocent bystanders. That job is maddeningly difficult for human beings on the ground. It only becomes more difficult when a device is remotely operated.

This problem has already arisen with Predator aircraft, which find their targets with the aid of soldiers on the ground but are operated from the United States. Because civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan have died as a result of collateral damage or mistaken identities, Predators have generated international opposition and prompted accusations of war crimes.

But robot combatants are supported by a range of military strategists, officers and weapons designers — and even some human rights advocates.

“A lot of people fear artificial intelligence,” said John Arquilla, executive director of the Information Operations Center at the Naval Postgraduate School. “I will stand my artificial intelligence against your human any day of the week and tell you that my A.I. will pay more attention to the rules of engagement and create fewer ethical lapses than a human force.”

Dr. Arquilla argues that weapons systems controlled by software will not act out of anger and malice and, in certain cases, can already make better decisions on the battlefield than humans.

His faith in machines is already being tested.

“Some of us think that the right organizational structure for the future is one that skillfully blends humans and intelligent machines,” Dr. Arquilla said. “We think that that’s the key to the mastery of 21st-century military affairs.”

Automation has proved vital in the wars America is fighting. In the air in Iraq and Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft with names like Predator, Reaper, Raven and Global Hawk have kept countless soldiers from flying sorties. Moreover, the military now routinely uses more than 6,000 tele-operated robots to search vehicles at checkpoints as well as to disarm one of the enemies’ most effective weapons: the I.E.D., or improvised explosive device.

Yet the shift to automated warfare may offer only a fleeting strategic advantage to the United States. Fifty-six nations are now developing robotic weapons, said Ron Arkin, a Georgia Institute of Technology roboticist and a government-financed researcher who has argued that it is possible to design “ethical” robots that conform to the laws of war and the military rules of escalation.

But the ethical issues are far from simple. Last month in Germany, an international group including artificial intelligence researchers, arms control specialists, human rights advocates and government officials called for agreements to limit the development and use of tele-operated and autonomous weapons.

The group, known as the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, said warfare was accelerated by automated systems, undermining the capacity of human beings to make responsible decisions. For example, a gun that was designed to function without humans could shoot an attacker more quickly and without a soldier’s consideration of subtle factors on the battlefield.

“The short-term benefits being derived from roboticizing aspects of warfare are likely to be far outweighed by the long-term consequences,” said Mr. Wallach, the Yale scholar, suggesting that wars would occur more readily and that a technological arms race would develop.

As the debate continues, so do the Army’s automation efforts. In 2001 Congress gave the Pentagon the goal of making one-third of the ground combat vehicles remotely operated by 2015. That seems unlikely, but there have been significant steps in that direction.

For example, a wagonlike Lockheed Martin device that can carry more than 1,000 pounds of gear and automatically follow a platoon at up to 17 miles per hour is scheduled to be tested in Afghanistan early next year.

For rougher terrain away from roads, engineers at Boston Dynamics are designing a walking robot to carry gear. Scheduled to be completed in 2012, it will carry 400 pounds as far as 20 miles, automatically following a soldier.

The four-legged modules have an extraordinary sense of balance, can climb steep grades and even move on icy surfaces. The robot’s “head” has an array of sensors that give it the odd appearance of a cross between a bug and a dog. Indeed, an earlier experimental version of the robot was known as Big Dog.

This month the Army and the Australian military held a contest for teams designing mobile micro-robots — some no larger than model cars — that, operating in swarms, can map a potentially hostile area, accurately detecting a variety of threats.

Separately, a computer scientist at the Naval Postgraduate School has proposed that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency finance a robotic submarine system that would intelligently control teams of dolphins to detect underwater mines and protect ships in harbors.

“If we run into a conflict with Iran, the likelihood of them trying to do something in the Strait of Hormuz is quite high,” said Raymond Buettner, deputy director of the Information Operations Center at the Naval Postgraduate School. “One land mine blowing up one ship and choking the world’s oil supply pays for the entire Navy marine mammal program and its robotics program for a long time.”

Such programs represent a resurgence in the development of autonomous systems in the wake of costly failures and the cancellation of the Army’s most ambitious such program in 2009. That program was once estimated to cost more than $300 billion and expected to provide the Army with an array of manned and unmanned vehicles linked by a futuristic information network.

Now, the shift toward developing smaller, lighter and less expensive systems is unmistakable. Supporters say it is a consequence of the effort to cause fewer civilian casualties. The Predator aircraft, for example, is being equipped with smaller, lighter weapons than the traditional 100-pound Hellfire missile, with a smaller killing radius.

At the same time, military technologists assert that tele-operated, semi-autonomous and autonomous robots are the best way to protect the lives of American troops.

Army Special Forces units have bought six lawn-mower-size robots — the type showcased in the Robotics Rodeo — for classified missions, and the National Guard has asked for dozens more to serve as sentries on bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. These units are known as the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, or Maars, and they are made by a company called QinetiQ North America.

The Maars robots first attracted the military’s interest as a defensive system during an Army Ranger exercise here in 2008. Used as a nighttime sentry against infiltrators equipped with thermal imaging vision systems, the battery-powered Maars unit remained invisible — it did not have the heat signature of a human being — and could “shoot” intruders with a laser tag gun without being detected itself, said Bob Quinn, a vice president at QinetiQ.

Maars is the descendant of an earlier experimental system built by QinetiQ. Three armed prototypes were sent to Iraq and created a brief controversy after they pointed a weapon inappropriately because of a software bug.

However, QinetiQ executives said the real shortcoming of the system was that it was rejected by Army legal officers because it did not follow military rules of engagement — for example, using voice warnings and then tear gas before firing guns. As a consequence, Maars has been equipped with a loudspeaker as well as a launcher so it can issue warnings and fire tear gas grenades before firing its machine gun.

Remotely controlled systems like the Predator aircraft and Maars move a step closer to concerns about the automation of warfare. What happens, ask skeptics, when humans are taken out of decision making on firing weapons? Despite the insistence of military officers that a human’s finger will always remain on the trigger, the speed of combat is quickly becoming too fast for human decision makers.

“If the decisions are being made by a human being who has eyes on the target, whether he is sitting in a tank or miles away, the main safeguard is still there,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, which tracks war crimes. “What happens when you automate the decision? Proponents are saying that their systems are win-win, but that doesn’t reassure me.”

War Machines: Recruiting Robots for Combat,
NYT,
27.11.2010,
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/
science/28robot.html 

 

 

 

 

 

Faster, deadlier pilotless plane

bound for Afghanistan

 

27.8.2007
USA Today
By Tom Vanden Brook

 

CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — The Air Force this fall will deploy a new generation of pilotless airplane with the bombing power of an F-16 to help stop the stubborn Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The Reaper is an upgraded version of the Predator, which has become one of the military's most sought-after planes since it first appeared in Afghanistan in 2001. The Reaper can fly three times as fast as a Predator and carry eight times more weaponry, such as Hellfire missiles, the Air Force said.

The Reaper's greater range and speed make it better suited than the Predator to Afghanistan with its vast, rugged terrain. The Reaper will also be deployed to Iraq. Its speed and arms will let it track and kill moving targets able to elude a Predator, said Brig. Gen. James Poss, director of intelligence for Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Air Force officials cite the June 2006 killing of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was tracked by a Predator but ultimately killed by bombs dropped by an F-16. The Reaper "is ideal for that type of target," said Lt. Col. Gregory Christ, director of staff at Creech.

Despite the Predator's success, field commanders wanted a faster, more lethal alternative, said Col. Charles Bartlett, leader of the Air Force's unmanned aircraft task force.

Such demand has prompted the Air Force to rush to train operators and crews. In 2003, the Air Force trained fewer than 40 Predator operators. In 2008, that will soar to 160. It has trained 10 Reaper operators this year, and expects to train 19 more in 2008.

The Reaper squadron will start small and has only four aircraft, said Maj. David Small, an Air Force spokesman. It will ultimately have 20 planes, he said.

Most Reapers, like Predators, are flown from bases in the United States, such as Creech, which is about an hour north of the Las Vegas strip.

The Reaper carries about the same payload as the F-16 but can stay aloft as much as eight times longer than the F-16, which must refuel about every two hours.

"You've got a lot of ammo circling overhead on call for short-notice strikes," said John Pike, director of the military think tank, Globalsecurity. "It seems like a good idea."

Demand for Predator flights has exploded. This year, Predator flight hours are expected to exceed 70,000 hours, more than triple the total in 2003.

Combat pilots say they miss the feel of flying but say remote-control aircraft are here to stay.

"This is the future," said Chad Miner, chief of weapons and tactics at Creech, a Predator trainer and an F-16 pilot. "I would love to … jump in an F-16 and go. But I'm a more valuable asset to the military doing this. It's not the sexiest answer, but it's true."

    Faster, deadlier pilotless plane bound for Afghanistan,
    UT, 27.8.2007,
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/
    2007-08-27-reaper-afghanistan_N.htm

 

 

 

 

 

Military to use bomb-sniffing robots

 

USA Today
By James Hannah,
Associated Press

 

DAYTON, Ohio — As it increases its use of robots in war zones, the military will begin using a explosive-sniffing version that will allow soldiers to better detect roadside bombs, which account for more than 70% of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

Fido is the first robot with an integrated explosives sensor. Burlington, Mass.-based iRobot Corp. is filling the military's first order of 100 in this southwest Ohio city and will ship the robots over the next few months.

There are nearly 5,000 robots in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from about 150 in 2004. Soldiers use them to search caves and buildings for insurgents, detect mines and ferret out roadside and car bombs.

As the war in Iraq enters its fifth year, the federal government is spending more money on military robots and the two major U.S. robot makers have increased production.

Foster-Miller Inc., of Waltham, Mass., recently delivered 1,000 new robots to the military. IRobot cranked out 385 robots last year, up from 252 in 2005.

The government will spend about $1.7 billion on ground-based military robots between fiscal 2006 and 2012, said Bill Thomasmeyer, head of the National Center for Defense Robotics, a congressionally funded consortium of 160 companies, universities and government labs. That's up from $100 million in fiscal 2004.

Fido, produced at a GEM City Manufacturing and Engineering plant, represents an improvement in bomb-detecting military robots, said Col. Terry Griffin, project manager of the Army/Marine Corps Robotic Systems Joint Project Office at Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

The bomb-sniffing sensor is part of the robot, with its readings displayed on the controller along with camera images. Otherwise, a soldier would have to approach the suspect object with a sensor or try to attach it to a robot. The new robot has a 7-foot manipulator arm so it can use the sensor to scan the inside and undercarriage of vehicles for bombs.

Officials would not release details of how the sensors work because of security concerns.

"The sniffer robot is a very good idea because we need some way of understanding ambiguous situations like abandoned cars or suspicious trash piles without putting soldiers' lives on the line," said Loren Thompson, defense analyst with the Washington-based Lexington Institute.

Philip Coyle, senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, said the robots could be helpful if they are used in cases where soldiers already suspect a bomb. But he said explosive-sniffing sensors are susceptible to false positives triggered by explosive residues elsewhere in the area, smoke and other contaminants.

"The soldiers can begin to lose faith in them, and they become more trouble than they're worth," he said.

Thompson said all military robots have limitations. Their every move must be dictated by an operator, they can be stopped by barriers or steep grades, they are not highly agile and they can break down or be damaged, he said.

Robots range in size from tiny — 1.5-pound ones carrying cameras are tossed into buildings to search for insurgents — to brute — 110-pound versions move rubble and lift debris.

Fido is an upgrade of PackBot, a 52-pound robot with rubber treads, lights, video cameras that zoom and swivel, obstacle-hurdling flippers and jointed manipulator arms with hand-like grippers designed to disable or destroy bombs. Each costs $165,000.

Army Staff Sgt. Shawn Baker, 26, of Olean, N.Y., has helped detect and disable roadside bombs during two tours in Iraq. Before the robots were available, he and fellow soldiers would stand back as far as possible with a rope and drag hooks over the suspect devices in hopes of disarming or detonating them.

Two soldiers were killed that way, Baker said. No one in his unit has been hurt or killed while disarming bombs since the robots arrived.

"The science and technology of this has been way out in front of the production side," Thomasmeyer said. "We're going to start to see a payoff for all the science and technology advancements."

IRobot posted $189 million in sales last year, up 33% from 2005. Its military business grew 60% to about $76 million. Bob Quinn, general manager of Foster-Miller, said his company has contracts of $320 million for military robots and that its business has doubled every year for the past four years.

Military to use bomb-sniffing robots,
UT, 30.3.2007,
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-30-
military-robots_N.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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