New robots to aid troops, Skynet smiles

Ok, nothing to do with Skynet, the supposedly mythical robot AI fighting humans in Ah-nuld’s “Terminator” series. (Yes, other people were in the movies and headlined yet others… but face it,  he is the face of the franchise.)

“We’re prototyping platoons,” Rainey (Gen. James Rainey, head of Army Futures Command – ed.) said. “This isn’t Power Point; we have our first human-machine integrated formation for light infantry.”

MCOE Experimental Company, 1st Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, 316th conducted an urban assault. But instead of human soldiers rushing across open areas and bursting into buildings, robots took the lead.

Rainey said 20 soldiers with four robotic vehicles were able to cross the open terrain to reach the building. But first robots with smoke generators created a screen.

At the same time, robot vehicles with tethered drones jammed enemy signals and extended the soldiers’ network. Small drones dropped robotic ground vehicles with cameras atop buildings to scout the interior while even smaller aerial drones entered windows, scanning the inside of the structure and transmitting back a “blueprint” of the building to soldiers on the ground.

Then robot “dogs” with cameras of their own, entered the building looking for hazards and seeking out enemy troops.

“We demonstrated how a forward line of UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) sensors can be deployed and supported by a forward line of armed robotics, all ahead of the forward line of troops,” said Capt. Tim Young, experimental company commander said in an Army release. “That way we’re sensing early on in the battlefield, we’re engaging with robots making sure we don’t shed human blood for first contact, and then we’re bringing in troops to finish the fight.”

Another human-machine integrated platoon with the opposite force trainers at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California is being built to work alongside mechanized formations. Due to the speed of movement of those types of units, Rainey said early work will focus on defensive positions until the robotic platforms can keep up with the fast-moving formation.

I will concede Rainey made a couple of good points: using robotic units to evacuate casualties may be more efficient than stretcher-bearers most of the time,  and he says they are concentrating on what is doable now, not what they think can be done someday. Please, put the F-35 program under this man!

One of the fascinating things is robotic (casualty evacuation),” Rainey said. “If you take casualties instead of four soldiers carrying one soldier on a litter, you could put four litters on a robot, keep the medic with it, preprogram a grid and (evacuate).”

“It’s really about risk,” Rainey said. “Why are we finding IEDs leading into a minefield with humans, with men and women?”  Army Times

As far as I can tell, there are only two related ideas that are just out of reach: robotically teaching a new 2nd Lieutenant how to read a map, and using AI to overcome natural stupidity.Maybe that’s where “I can’t do that, Dave” comes in.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Army, Artificial Intelligence