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ROBOTICS
September 2007
Gun-Toting Ground Robots See Action in Iraqi Streets
By Stew Magnuson
 The U.S. Army quietly entered a new era earlier this summer when it sent the first armed ground robots into action in Iraq.
So far, the robot army’s entry into the war has been a trickle rather than an invasion. Only three of the special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system (SWORDS) have been deployed so far.
The Army has authorized the purchase of 80 more robots — which are being touted as a potentially life-saving technology — but acquisition officials have not come forth with the funding.
“As [soldiers] use them and like them, I’ve heard positive feedback, they want 20 more immediately. It’s a shame we can’t get them to them,” said Michael Zecca, former SWORDS program manager and chief of weapons safety and health physics branch at the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
Whether SWORDS and other armed robots become effective weapons remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is moving forward with dozens of other robotics programs — from the now ubiquitous surveillance drones to ground robots that perform security and logistics duties. SWORDS could be the first step leading to a larger “robot army.”
The three SWORDS robots, which tote M249 light machine guns and are remotely controlled by a soldier through a terminal, are with the 3rd Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade. After three years of development at ARDEC, the robots were formally approved for combat use in June. Their exact whereabouts and missions are classified, but Zecca confirmed that they have been used in reconnaissance tasks and street patrols. He didn’t know if their weapons had been fired.
SWORDS is designed to take on “high risk combat missions,” said an ARDEC press release. A specialist controlling the robot may send it into a crowded neighborhood infested with snipers to seek targets and take them out before a foot patrol follows.
“Anytime you utilize technology to take a U.S. service member out of harm’s way, it is worth every penny,” said John Saitta, a consultant with Smart Business Advisory and Consulting and a major in the Marine Corps reserves, who has been trained as a weapons and tactics instructor.
“These armed robots can be used as a force multiplier to augment an already significant force in the battle space,” he added.
The 80 robots were approved under an urgent equipment request, which is a mechanism designed to speed potentially life-saving technologies to the battlefield. They are being held up “due to limited funding in fiscal years” 2006 and 2007, said Lt. Col. William Wiggins, a spokesman for the office of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
“While SWORDS is currently not a program of record, the Army has initiated a memorandum of agreement between ARDEC and Robotic System-Joint Project Office to expedite establishing a funded program to meet Army needs,” Wiggins said in a written statement.
The three robots currently in Iraq were developed and purchased with $2.5 million from the congressional rapid prototyping science and technology fund, Wiggins said.
Each system costs about $250,000, but the manufacturer, Foster-Miller Inc. of Waltham, Mass., said the price tag will go down to $115,000 if an order reaches 100 or more robots, Zecca said.
In addition to the 83 robots already built or approved for funding, there is a request for 20 more from the 3rd Brigade, Zecca said.
The introduction of a new weapon during a shooting war, followed by a relatively rapid development cycle means that concepts of operation and tactics, techniques and procedures have also been put on an accelerated pace, Zecca said.
Early versions of the documents that explain to soldiers and officers the rules of engagement, and how and when the weapon can be used, were written up at the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., where operational training also took place.
The documents will be a baseline, Zecca said. “We didn’t have the luxury of being in peacetime and developing [tactics, techniques and procedures] in country before shipping it overseas.
“They’re going to fine tune the operational use while in theater, which is not ideal, but that’s the way it’s going to be done,” he added. Formal documents will be derived from scenarios the robots and their operators encounter in Iraq.
Seventy-one of the 80 unfunded robots are allocated to Stryker brigades, he added.
Saitta, who also served in the Marines as an armor officer, said armed robots and their operators need to become organically part of a unit to be effective. Just as a TOW missile crew supports tanks, the robots and their operators should be fully integrated into Stryker brigades.
The robots could prove their worth in urban areas with blind corners or curves and little intelligence of what lies beyond, he said.
One skeptic knowledgeable about military robots questioned whether this new weapon would make a long-term impact.
Insurgents will attempt to defeat them just as they have with the military’s new counter-roadside bomb technology. The three robots could last weeks rather than months in the field, said the source, who declined to be named because he is still involved in the military robot community.
James Canton, chief executive officer of the Institute for Global Futures and an expert on military technologies, said SWORDS is a relatively simple machine and just the cusp of where the military is going with robots. The coming robot army will change the military world both tactically and strategically, he predicted.
SWORDS, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other such systems are “tele-robotics,” in other words, a human is somewhere else controlling the machine. But autonomy, even for armed robots, is coming, he said. That includes a machine that will hunt, identify, authenticate and possibly kill a target without a human in the decision loop.
Instead of units with 2,000 soldiers and 150 robots, that equation might be turned around within a decade. “Imagine a detachment of 150 humans and 2,000 robots,” Canton said. That won’t happen overnight, but the technology is advancing quickly, he said.
Robotics technology is now like “Moore’s law on steroids,” Canton said, referring to the observation that computer chip technology doubles in capacity every 18 to 24 months.
This evolution will be the result of several rapidly developing fields, including advanced robotics, sensors and network-centric communications, Canton said.
“You’re changing the entire conversation about war,” he added. For one, it will be easier for the military to become engaged in multiple flashpoints around the world. And just as tactical nuclear weapons served as a deterrent during the Cold War, so will the U.S. military’s advanced robotics. Canton challenged critics who say that would make the United States “trigger happy” because the nation will not be risking lives. “That’s a disturbing scenario,” he said. But robot armies don’t come cheap, he noted, and going to war with one would still be a tough decision, and some soldiers would still be at risk.
The robots will perform many tasks, and take several forms and shapes, including those of humans, he predicted. “The biomechanics of humanoids are pretty efficient,” he said. They will be able to run, dodge, leap, and ping facial recognition databases to identify targets.
The ability to fight wars is based on recruiting, training and arming humans, he said. Placing autonomous lethal robots into battles will be controversial, “but it won’t be as controversial as it will be putting Americans in harm’s way.”
Saitta said until the day artificial intelligence can accurately identify targets, the military can’t take the human out of the equation. “There are times in a combat environment — particularly urban areas where not everyone is a bad guy — there should be someone making the decision to pull that trigger.”
Despite the lack of funding to fully field SWORDS, the program is working on the next steps that may one day lead to Canton’s vision of a robot army. SWORDS 1.5 will carry 400 rounds instead of 200, and include a round-counter to tell operators how much ammunition is left.
ARDEC is working on installing a speaker for two-way communications so an operator can tell targets to “halt” or “drop your weapons.” Other improvements may include algorithms that will allow it to conduct waypoint navigation and an “autohome” feature that will command the robot to return to its operators with one push of a button.
Upgrades for the optics and night-vision sensors are being planned as well as the mounting of other weapons on the robots.
SWORDS 1.5 is also a test bed for anti-tampering devices that would use pyrotechnics to prevent enemies from disarming or disabling any remote controlled system. An improved, lighter chassis that allows for a second battery and for operators to swap them out with greater ease is also in the works, Zecca said.
Meanwhile, the program has caught the attention of U.S. Special Operations Command, which is providing funding to ARDEC to develop a SWORDS 2.0 robot.
“They want to have the latest and greatest and [a robot] unique to them,” Zecca said. Among the improvements SOCOM would like to see is a turret that rotates 360 degrees rather than the 30 degrees to each side on SWORDS 1.0.
ARDEC continues to work on other remotely controlled weapon systems that are mounted on platforms other than robots. Guns can be placed in guard towers, on tripods or humvees, he said.
“Several people have contacted us for lessons learned to see how we did this, because you’re going to be seeing more of these systems out there,” Zecca said.
Besides the special operations community, military police are interested in mounting non-lethal weapons on robots. The Army’s Future Combat Systems program, which has concepts for armed robots, has also contacted ARDEC, Zecca said.
“We’re the first ones and we took a lot of scrutiny going through tests — for valid reasons — so other offices are going to be looking to us on how it can be done,” Zecca said.
Please email your comments to SMagnuson@ndia.org
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