Tallahasee Democrat News
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Military tests robots for protecting bases
By Bill Kaczor
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE - The question of whether to use robotic
vehicles instead of humans to guard the perimeter of Air Force
bases is a no-brainer for Staff Sgt. Miguel Jimenez.
The Miami airman was plucked from his normal security force duties
at nearby Tyndall Air Force Base to help with proof-of-concept
testing at Eglin. It is designed to determine if semiautonomous
vehicles would be practical for detecting, detaining and battling
intruders at air bases and for forward-deployed units.
"If somebody wants to spend the money and send something like that
out there instead of my life, I'm all about that," Jimenez said
Tuesday.
The vehicles being tested cost from $200,000 to $500,000.
The most expensive is the Jeep-size, four-wheeled Mobile Detection
and Response System. MDARS also has drawn interest from other
services and is expected to go into production next year, said
Walter Waltz, chief of robotic research for the Air Force Research
Laboratory at Tyndall.
MDARS is equipped with radar, television cameras and infrared to
detect people, vehicles and other objects. It carries a
breadbox-sized, tracked mini-robot called Matilda that can be
launched to search under vehicles, inside buildings and other
relatively small places.
Scout is similar to MDARS but fashioned from an off-the-shelf,
four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, giving it added versatility
because a human can ride it like a normal ATV when it's not being
used as a robot. It also can carry a small tracked robot called
Pacbot.
MDARS and Scout can be equipped with remotely fired weapons. An
M-16 rifle and pepper sprayer are mounted on the Scout being tested
here.
"We're taking the war-fighter out of the direct line of attack,"
said Capt. Adolfo Meana Jr., chief of the concepts division for the
Force Protection Battlelab at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
"What we are hoping is the robots will actually detect the enemy
first, will receive any of the initial hostile acts," Meana said.
"If you shoot the robot we don't care. We know you're there, you're
hostile, and we can keep our forces in reserve to move tactically
against the enemy. The robots will save our troops' lives."
The vehicles can be programmed to patrol specific areas on their
own and then alert an operator by radio if they come across
something suspicious. The machines then can be remotely operated
from laptop computers to identify, detain or attack
intruders.
The vehicles have loudspeakers and microphones for challenging and
questioning suspected intruders. A Phraselator enables the operator
to select from a variety of languages.
Jimenez said he has found the laptop controls easy to use.
"If somebody ... uses PlayStation or X-Box, that type of thing,
it's right up their alley," Jimenez said.
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Pretty revolutionary yet it throws up a whole can of worms,
especially how far can we fight in battle without the "warm
bodies".Human systems do play a part as well as such AI units.One
thing they might not have is the ability to make a judgement call
on the fly.Sometimes, we can't rely too much on machines to do the
work which we want carried out. 