The US Army intends to send armed robots for operational use for the first time in the coming months; The robots, which will be stationed in Iraq, were developed following the demands of the soldiers
News agencies
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Police saboteurs and bomb disposal robots are unfortunately a very familiar vision in our country. An American company decided, in cooperation with the army, to turn these robots into offensive tools.
The US military plans to send 18 robots armed and equipped for combat to Iraq starting in March or April. The robots, called SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems), will be the first armed robots in operational use. Many eyes in the Pentagon will be on them in view of the extensive plans to introduce robots into the fighter array.
Army officers like to compare themselves to soldiers. They don't need training, food or clothing. They can be left in storage between wars. They never complain and most of all they save having to send letters home in case they don't come back in one piece. But, they don't act on their own. Every movement or pressing of the trigger is carried out by the robot operator who watches through the video cameras installed on the robot and directs it with the help of a remote control. "The only difference is that the weapon is not close to the shoulder, it is up to 800 meters away," said Bob Quinn, director of Talon robots for the Foster-Miller company.
Quinn said that the robots were put into offensive activity following calls from the field. He said that soldiers told the officers and members of the company: "Our friends are being killed there. We love bomb disposal bombs, but let's put weapons on it." The development carried out by the Picatinny Arsenal company took about six months and cost about two million dollars.
From Mage to Ironstorms
The robot, which costs $200,000 per unit, is equipped with a minimal type machine gun (M249) with a diameter of 5.56 mm or a mag with a diameter of 7.62. The robot also carries four cameras that include magnification options and night vision devices, which are already in use by the military. During the experiments conducted, the robot achieved one hundred percent hits on the targets. According to Kevin, a soldier who can hit a basketball from a distance of 300 meters can hit a coin from the same distance if he activates the robot. The SWORDS has already been tested with 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns and with grenade launchers and rockets. He even experimented with an experimental weapon called the Iron Storm, which fires iron balls placed one behind the other and activated by electric ignition. The Iron Storm can release 6,000 rounds per minute.
The robot is powered by lithium batteries and can operate from one to four hours continuously. It rides on caterpillars similar to those of tanks and can pass wire fences, climb stairs and climb rock piles. Its maximum speed is about six km/h.
The bomb disposal robot has already proven itself in Iraq to be very durable. One of the robots was blown off the roof of a Jeep Hummer into a river by a side charge explosion. He left the river on a ride.
Soon: robots will fight in Iraq
The US military is investing in sophisticated robots that move over uneven surfaces, neutralize side charges and even shoot accurately at a distance. They are controlled remotely by operators, who will use a joystick for this purpose
The rain had turned to snow on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in the parking lot at Angelwood Cliffs in New Jersey would surely have preferred to be under cover. But the weather did not bother the sniper robot they were watching. The metal soldier moves across puddles with the machine gun barrel integrated into his body reminiscent of Pinocchio's nose.
The US military plans to send 18 similar robot-warriors, controlled remotely, to fight in Iraq starting in March or April of this year.
These robots, called SWORDS (short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems), were developed by a small company from Massachusetts. They will be the first mobile robots to carry weapons and participate in battle, many years before future combat vehicles (Future Combat System or FCS), which are currently being developed by giant companies including Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.
Not a murderous robot
When one of these robots comes out of a luxurious lobby of an office building and moves down the street it almost resembles a human being rather than an obedient computerized soldier. If you will, the SWORDS is an improved model of a human soldier: it needs no training, food or uniform. It can be stored in a box between the wars. He never complains. And most importantly - there is no need to tell his family in case he falls in battle.
The development process, conducted in collaboration with soldiers and engineers from the Picatinny weapons base in New Jersey, took six months, and the cost of adding the weapon to the standard robot reached only about two million dollars, according to the estimates of Kevin and Anthony Sabato, director of technology at Picatinny.
The military is quick to stress that these are not the murderous robots we know from science fiction movies like "Robocop". The SWORDS robot fires only when a human operator presses a button, after detecting a target on a video screen that projects the transmissions of the robot's built-in camera.
"The only difference is that the control of the weapon is not in the hands of the robot but in the hands of the operator, who is about 800 meters away from him," said Bob Quinn, director of robotics at the Foster-Miller company, which manufactures the SWORDS.
The soldiers are in favor
According to Kevin, changing the purpose of the existing robots, which have been serving in the US Army since 2000, from machines whose role is to neutralize side charges to robots that are able to shoot - is not an easy process.
It is a joint development of the army and Foster-Miller, a robotics company that was acquired in November by QinetiQ Group, which is jointly owned by the British Ministry of Defense
and of the Carlyle Group, a holding company from Washington. Officials in the army and company employees heard the voice of soldiers, who suggested arming the robots that neutralize bombs and charges, in order to save human lives.
The armed version of the robot, which costs 200,000 dollars, is equipped with automatic weapons, model M249, which fires bullets with a diameter of 5.56 millimeters at a rate of 750 bullets per minute, or model M240, which fires bullets of 7.62 millimeters at a rate of 700-1,000 bullets per minute. The SWORDS is able to fire about 300 rounds per minute, using the M249 model, before it needs to be reloaded.
All the optical equipment that is installed in the robot - the four cameras, night vision equipment and close-up lenses - was already in the possession of the army and was not specially purchased.
Operation by joystick
In the parking lot of the headquarters of the CNBC TV station, the robot finishes demonstrating its capabilities to the cameras, including climbing stairs, running between rooms and even broadcasting some of the video segments it shot on TV.
Its developers say that, like a tank, it is able to move over piles of rocks and barbed wire, although it cannot move at a speed that exceeds about six kilometers per hour.
A fairly durable robot
The developed robot has already proven itself to be quite durable. According to Kevin, one of the robots was blown off the roof of a Jeep in Iraq by an explosion and landed in a nearby river. The soldiers simply opened the damaged control unit, and rescued the robot from the river.
The robot, which operates using a lithium ion battery, can work between 1-4 hours continuously, depending on the type of task given to it. It is operated by a remote control that weighs about 13 kg, and includes two joysticks, many buttons and a video screen. Kevin explains that this control unit may be replaced in the future by a Gameboy-like controller (Nintendo's portable game console), which will be connected to virtual reality glasses.
During the past year, the army carried out tests for SWORDS at the Picatinny base and at the Aberdeen training area in Maryland, in order to find deficiencies in the robot's functioning and to make sure that it is able to deal with devices that disrupt radio waves and various countermeasures. (Sabato refused to comment on the question of what would happen if the robot and its remote control fell into the hands of the enemy).
The developers say that the SWORDS not only allows the operator to fire at the enemies without risk of damage, but should also make the shooting more accurate. Kevin claims that a typical soldier, who could hit a target the size of a basketball 300 meters away, could, with the help of the robot, hit a target the size of a coin from the same distance.
A deadly robot
The improved accuracy is mainly due to the fact that the rifle is mounted on a stable base and fires electronically, as opposed to a rifle that is held in the hands of a human soldier, explained Sergeant Santiago Tordillos, a member of Picatinny's technological management. This way it will be possible to avoid many problems that may happen during shooting, such as the need to stop and aim, stress and more. "It raises most of the shooting mistakes that exist," Tordilos said.
SWORDS will most likely become even more deadly in the future. The robot has been tested in the use of a machine gun with a larger diameter, of 50., as well as in the use of rockets and grenade launchers, and in an experimental weapon, produced by the Australian company Metal Storm, which compresses several missiles into one cartridge, thus providing much faster firing.
"At Picatinny we shot 70 times and all the shots were accurate hits," Sabato said, while boasting about the success his men had in firing with a Vietnam War-era missile launcher mounted on top of the state-of-the-art robot.
"There will always be a person who will decide"
Many factors will follow the SWORDS as it goes into battle. One day it will be followed by large vehicles, such as the six-wheeled MULE, a vehicle that weighs 2.5 tons, includes six engines, in order to become more durable, and is currently being developed by Lockheed Martin.
The Pentagon's development arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has also recently approved contracts for the development of robots that will one day be able to be parachuted from planes in the middle of battle, as well as other robots that will be able to climb walls using electrostatic energy, also known as "static grip".
Many of the vehicles being developed for the FCS will benefit from a certain independence, which will be reflected in the ability to navigate on uneven surfaces, avoid obstacles on the way and make decisions about certain tasks without consulting another system or a human operator.
Apparently, the robots violate Asimov's laws of robotics, the first of which states that a robot will not harm a person, but in this case the question arises as to whether the harm is caused by the robot or its operator. Jim Lowery, president of Colorado-based Perceptek, which develops robotics systems for the US military, believes that the fighting robots will not be allowed to make a decision about whether to pull the trigger. "Even in the foreseeable future, there will always be a person whose job it is to make the decision, whether it is an enemy or a friend. It's a difficult decision to reach independently," Lori said.
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