ARTICLE

May 2004

Warfare by Remote Control

Security Robot Could Protect Military Bases

by Roxana Tiron

A long-awaited robotic security system—capable of detecting intruders, assessing their intentions, communicating their location and even stopping them in their tracks—will be evaluated next month at Hawthorne Army Depot, Nev. The Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System (MDARS) was conceived to provide security at installations in the United States, but program officials now intend to send it to forward operating bases around the world.

“Our intent is to get that technology to areas of responsibility as soon as we have the bugs ironed out,” said Lt. Col. Eugene Stockel, product manager for U.S. Army force protection systems.

That deployment, however, depends on having enough resources and on demonstrating the systems’ relevance, he said.

Stockel’s office is conducting an analysis of alternatives on the system “to determine what is the end- state requirement to field this capability to forces overseas,” Stockel told National Defense. “We are certainly exploring the potential to take the prototype systems overseas and putting them in the field, and see how well they do, but we do not want to do that until we characterize their performance.”

After the early user appraisal, which will last for eight months, the system will be refined and prepared for the milestone decision authority that will give the green light to produce a certain number of systems to meet, at first, the requirements in the United States. The production decision should be reached by March 2006.

MDARS is designed to provide automated intrusion detection and inventory assessment on military bases and depots. It is expected to operate autonomously, in a stand-alone mode or with other intrusion detection systems.

MDARS has three services participating—the Army, Navy and Air Force and is funded under the Defense Department physical security equipment action group. The Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command developed the host architecture, while the Army Military Police School developed the operational requirements document. The system comports with the Air Force’s operational requirements for the integrated base defense 2020 concept, Stockel told an industry conference organized by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

The idea behind MDARS is to provide multiple platforms that perform random patrols within assigned areas on bases and warehouse. During these patrols, these systems are programmed to detect, for example, anomalous conditions, such as flooding or fires, intruders and determine the status of items in inventory. Through tagging, the platform can verify the contents of closed structures without opening them.

The mobile platforms employ a suite of sensors that are autonomously controlled by a monitor panel. The mobility base is a four-wheel hydrostatic-drive, diesel-powered vehicle equipped with active laser, ultra-sonic sonar, millimeter-wave radar and stereo video sensors for collision avoidance. The vehicle also is outfitted with intrusion detection and assessment forward-looking infrared, radar, camera and pan/tilt turret, as well as vehicle communications link antennas and differential GPS.

General Dynamics Robotic Systems is the prime contractor. The company also developed a system that can be used solely for interiors.

MDARS has been in the making since 1992. Approximately $12 million has been poured into the program, according to Stockel. Development has “taken a while,” said Stockel, because it was a daunting technical challenge.

“The program itself has been modestly budgeted,” he said. It was a precursor to the current robotics craze and the emphasis that the Army’s future combat systems places on unmanned systems.

“It was pretty much a forerunner,” he said. “MDARS was on a shoe-string budget.” But the program may well become a springboard for the development of autonomous robots in the Future Combat Systems—a network of manned and unmanned platforms that will replace existing tanks and fighting vehicles.

The FCS lead systems integrator—the Boeing-SAIC team—is working on developing an autonomous navigation system for unmanned ground vehicles. These include the Soldier Unmanned Ground Vehicle, the Mule utility transport, the armed robotic vehicle-light, the Mule network retransmission link, the ARV-reconnaissance and ARV-assault vehicle, according to SAIC’s Scott Fish, a former program manager for unmanned ground combat vehicles at the Defense Advanced Research Agency.

“We are using the General Dynamics robotic systems team for this effort, and it spans across the Mule and the ARV heavy and the manned ground vehicle,” Fish said at the conference. The FCS program currently is looking at research and development efforts for the autonomous navigation capability.

In the grand scheme of the future force, MDARS may find its place supporting the so-called FCS unit of employment. The UE will be deployed at logistics bases, ports and airfields. “That is where you find the utility for MDARS,” Stockel said.

Stockel maintained, however, that the mission MDARS performs will be outside the FCS operational requirements document. “This is not a competitor for FCS,” he added.

Meanwhile, Hawthorne Army Depot is being readied for the early user testing of four science-development and demonstration vehicles in June.

The Army is laying out the communications infrastructure and putting together some of the target assessments with which the robot will interact.

Hawthorne is an “ideal” environment to test the robots, because it is remarkably similar to Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. The vehicle will do autonomous patrolling, and will remotely interrogate a series of bunkers and “alarm” points, as well as check the status of locking devices and items in storage. “Through ID tagging technology [it renders] real visibility of the assets that are stored within the bunker, Stockel said.

MDARS also will have to respond to the installation standardized intruder detection systems and sensors.

MDARS is supposed to run 12 hours without human intervention. Logistics and sustainment also will be tested.

In order to employ a robot autonomously, the operator must maintain reliable communications with the platform, “because it is a security system and communications is critical to maintain positive control of the system,” Stockel said.

The autonomy is achieved through overlapping sensor capability, explained Stockel. “It has a scanning laser radar that is looking out beyond the vehicle. That radar brings back returns, and then paints a picture within the robot’s processor of the environment to its immediate front.” As such, it will determine, based on the character of the return, whether it is identifying an obstacle.

“If it is too big, it will stop. It will navigate around the obstacle, or send signals to the control panel,” he said. The robot can detect the obstacles to about 30 meters, while another laser beam scans the terrain right in front of the vehicle. It collects information and updates the pathway in front of the robot. “It is mounted low, in front of the vehicle, to pick up the elements that fall out of view, scanning in front of the vehicle,” Stockel said.

The course the robot will have to take is uploaded into the system beforehand, in the form of digital terrain data. “For our operational requirement and mission, you upload the pathways on the robot and the operation consoles, so that you can govern whether the robot will operate and how it will respond,” said Stockel.

If there is an intrusion that is detected by a fence sensor or unattended ground sensor, the robot can be cued by that alarm to respond, move to a particular position and provide the operator with a video.

“The robot moves to an over-watch position and does scanning of detection,” said Stockel. It provides both day and night assessment of what is going on. “When we get it right it is a very capable and beneficial capability for performing the drudgery of surveillance,” he said.

Depending on how it is employed, MDARS has the potential, coupled with supplemental ground sensors, to reduce the security personnel that may be needed, he said.

Planned enhancements for MDARS include improved all-weather detection, outfitting the system with ballistic and nuclear biological and chemical protection, and military secure communications. A more advanced MDARS should have an improved off-road performance and a larger, more adaptive payload. All these adjustments have to be made in a fashion that will keep down the cost per unit, so that it “allows us to procure a lot of these,” he said.

The current MDARS vehicles cost about $500,000 each.

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