Military Robotics Is Moving Into Position
Warfare is going to change in the future. Well, that is a no-nonsense statement. Warfare always is changing. The former commanding general, Army Training and Doctrine Command, Gen. Robert W. Cone, USA, said the Army was considering reducing brigade combat teams from 4,000 to 3,000 soldiers with robots and drones making up the difference. By 2030, he opined, one-fourth of U.S. combat soldiers could be replaced by robots.
Opposition to the use of military robots exists. Last month, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak, along with hundreds of others, signed an open letter to the United Nations calling for a ban on autonomous weapons. Autonomous weapons are those with the capability to kill without human oversight. Robots can kill, as illustrated by the recent death of a German autoworker who was grabbed and squeezed against the metal chest of an assembly line robot.
The United States is the world’s leader in drones and military robotics. But other nations already have, or are developing, military robots for missions such as fighting, reconnoitering and logistics.
Russia wants autonomous fighting robots—lots of them. China is developing military robots packed inside with more robots. South Korea already has deployed a robot sentry capable of killing at a distance of two miles. India is developing robot soldiers capable of fighting using artificial intelligence. And Israel was using military robots as early as 2010.
On June 5-6, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) hosted its robotic challenge competition in Pomona, California. A total of 23 teams from around the world participated, including groups from Japan, Germany, Italy, Korea and Hong Kong, along with 12 U.S. teams. The $2 million grand prize went to the Republic of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Two U.S. teams won large prizes—the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida, came in second, winning $1 million, and the Carnegie Mellon University “Tartan Rescue” team placed third, winning $500,000.
Last month, the U.S. Office of Naval Research sponsored the eighth annual RoboBoat competition in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with global contestants. Autonomous surface vehicles had to show capabilities to navigate a channel independent of human direction.
Major corporations already are using robots to chop overhead costs and improve customer service. Amazon boasts of meeting 35 orders a second from warehouses hosting a multitude of robots weaving in, out, around and sometimes under and over each other as they pitter autonomously filling customer orders.
Such innovation shows how military logistic support to the warfighters could happen. Google is going all out. Robotics is part of its business strategy for the future, complementing its inroads into artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. Google’s business strategy is to build smart robots related against 2018 revenue projections involving billions of dollars. When you add robotics to AI and quantum computing, it becomes one of those things that make you bite your lower lip while mumbling, “Ummmmm … .”
Robotics is way past its infancy. It already is a technological part of future warfare.
David E. Meadows, MBA, MS, is the author of The Sixth Fleet.
