U.S. Army plans next generation of military robots

By: Marie Cushing

Posted: 3/13/08

When it comes to the war on terror, Talon has been there from the beginning - helping in search-and-rescue efforts at Ground Zero, hunting for Osama bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan and charging into Iraq since 2003.

But Talon isn't your average soldier. It's a robot. And it's started carrying a machine gun.

Gun-wielding robots on the loose - sounds like the plot of the latest blockbuster science fiction movie. But the military is already using thousands of robots in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Pentagon reportedly plans to spend $2 billion on robots in the next five years. So are autonomous armed robots the next step? This was the topic of debate last week at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.

The military think-tank heard arguments from Pentagon-funded researchers who are hoping to develop robots with ethics and moral guidelines.

Others, fearing a rise of the machines, demand the prohibition of autonomous weaponry until it can be certain these "killer robots" have a conscience - more Iron Giant, less Terminator.

Those working on giving robots a sense of right and wrong hope to develop a system where the machine would question orders it deemed unethical. Human operators would then be notified and could force the robot to continue its course of action or yield to the robot's moral judgment.

One prototype currently under development, a 235-pound robot with an M240B machine gun, can be programmed not to shoot in certain zones so as to protect against friendly fire.

But for now, armed robotic weaponry still has human beings calling the shots - literally - via remote control.

The Talon brand of robots includes Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detections Systems or SWORDS. Designed by technology development company Foster-Miller, these machine gun-toting robots arrived in Iraq in June but did not fire a single shot due to unspecified technical errors.

Talon SWORDS currently cost $230,000 before mass production. Each unarmed version of Talon costs $60,000. America has an annual defense budget of $500 billion.

Robots are currently used to control unmanned vehicles on land, in the air and under the sea.

Crusher, a six-wheeled robot, rolls through ditches, walls, streams, other vehicles and almost anything else that gets in its way.

Owners of the Volkswagen Jetta will be proud to know that they share the same engine as the Crusher, a seven-ton, completely autonomous robot. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will soon set these robots rolling over, under and through anything in their path, and hope they have the same impact as their last big project: the Internet.

By 2015, the Pentagon hopes to have a third of its combat vehicles piloted by robots, with soldiers able to take over controls from a remote location at any time.

Robots are also used to disarm improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the cause of death for a vast majority of soldiers. Since the war began, 1,720 soldiers have been killed by IEDs according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

However, the thousands of explosives-detecting robots currently in Iraq and Afghanistan have reportedly found and prevented the detonation of 10,000 IEDs.

An original, unarmed Talon robot nicknamed "Gordon" discovered eight deeply buried IEDs, 18 landmines and 300 pounds of home made explosives before it was destroyed by gunfire.

Because of this, the number of robots used in Iraq and Afghanistan has more than tripled in the past three years, and the Pentagon plans to add 3,000 more by the end of this year.

After messy negotiations and legal issues, iRobot swept away the competition in its quest to become the company responsible for producing these robots. iRobot plans to soon unveil Warrior, a 250-pound robot with .30 caliber machine gun - big changes for a company best known for producing the robotic vacuum Roomba.

The military already uses Hellfire missiles - which need no guidance after being launched - and remote controlled, unmanned planes called Predators, another Schwarzenegger movie reference.

Some have argued that this boom in autonomic weaponry will lead to a competition between countries as to who can stockpile the most autonomic technology.

But while a robot-race sounds much more exciting than an arms-race or a three-legged-race, the idea of programming robots with their own Jiminy Cricket for moral guidance might get lost along the way.