The Return of the IED

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Thanks to Islamic State, the IED danger has just gotten worst in Iraq, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. The following story originally appeared in the Counter-IED Report.

ISIS’s latest threat: laying landmines

Militants from the group calling itself Islamic State (IS) are booby-trapping land and buildings with improvised explosive device (IEDs), creating new misery for displaced Iraqi families trying to return home and adding to dangers for government forces working on the front line.

Last week four mine clearance workers died and two were seriously injured when an IED detonated in a house in Zummar, close to Mosul Dam in Nineveh Governorate, in northern Iraq.

Witnesses said the opening of a bathroom door triggered an explosion causing the property to collapse, instantly killing the men. The group, employed by the Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency (IKMAA), run by the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), were working alongside the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military, who had recently won back the territory from IS.

Aid agencies are warning displaced Iraqis not to rush home to territory reclaimed from IS because of the risk of mines and other explosive remnants of war (ERWs) and have expressed concerns about mined borders areas between different military front lines.

“Large numbers of people are at significant risk,” said Nina Seecharan, Iraq country director for UK-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) in the Kurdistan capital Erbil.

Omer Hassan, a commercial deminer who went to the scene of the 29 October explosion to help survivors of the accident, said: “There is an immediate need to mark villages like Zummar that are full of dangers,” referring to red posts and flags used by clearance teams.

Hassan, who lost his leg in a landmine accident some 20 years ago and who has dedicated his life to demining, said IS was using crude home-made devices that were easily mistaken for other things.

“They can make booby-traps with everything,” explained Hassan. “You can find a brand-new torch. [IS] knows the Peshmerga need it, so they leave them. The Peshmerga picks it up, turns it on…” The torches are packed with explosives. “You can lose a hand,” said Hassan.

Iraq is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world due to decades of conflict and territorial disputes.

According to the Landmine Monitor, an affiliate of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the most-recently available statistics show up to 1,838sqkm of Iraqi territory is contaminated.

History repeating itself

In recent years intensive efforts to clear up ERWs mean most residential areas are now mine-free, and the bulk of remaining clearance operations are along mountainous border regions between Iran and Turkey where various armed groups had military posts.

However, thanks to IS, landmines are once again a very real danger for Iraqis, and not just in Kurdistan.

According to a 31 October report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as many as 3,000 ERWs and landmines were scattered across the town of Jurf al-Sakhr in Babil Governorate by a retreating IS.

“The issue of landmines is a major concern for us and one we urgently need to address,” said OCHA spokesman David Swanson.

Ako Aziz, the director of Mine Risk Education at IKMAA, said full details of what happened at the property in Zummar were still to be determined and an investigation had been launched.

He told IRIN that while the team was highly experienced, with some members having up to 15 years in the sector working on marked minefields and clearing ERWs from Iraq’s previous conflicts, they were not used to clearing houses of booby-traps.

“Our deminers are not specialized in IEDs, and need more training and experience,” he said.

“[IS] are very technical in laying out IEDs. They use many different ways and types of IEDs and a very high quality of explosives,” Aziz said. “This is the biggest challenge to the Peshmerga, as [IS] are booby-trapping all areas under their control.”

Raising awareness among the displaced

MAG, the only international humanitarian demining NGO left doing clearance work in Kurdistan, has been running awareness-raising sessions with displaced Iraqi families since June, when IS seized control of Mosul – forcing 600,000 people to flee in a matter of days.

“We’ve been working with displaced families to make them aware of the potential dangers, now and for when they return home,” MAG’s Seecharan explained. “Children who are naturally inquisitive and unable to read danger signs are particularly at risk.”

She said, however, that MAG clearance teams could not assist the military in their clearance operations because their remit was only humanitarian.

“While MAG’s imperative is to take action to prevent harm to civilians and civilian demining personnel, there has to be a clear line between humanitarian clearance in areas where active hostilities have ceased, and activities in support of ongoing military operations,” she said.

There are around a dozen commercial demining operators working in Iraq, including some international firms. Many are contracted by oil and gas companies clearing land for exploration, though some are also working for the government preparing for infrastructure projects and national parks.

Although the expertise is available in country to help the Iraqi authorities clear up the ERWs, the long-running budget dispute between Baghdad and Erbil means Kurdistan does not have sufficient money to take on new contractors.

Iraq also has an obligation to clear all of its landmines by 2018, having signed the Ottawa Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treat in 2007. For some time this target has seemed ambitious, even more so now with so many new devices being laid by IS.

A report by the Landmine Monitor in August 2013, citing the most-recent statistics from Iraqi government agencies, said that since the late 1980s more than 29,000 people have been victims of landmine accidents in the country.

Nearly 15,000 of those casualties – including 6,000 deaths – were in Kurdistan.

In 2012, the latest year for which data is available, there were 84 mine accidents across Iraq with 42 deaths, though many more incidents are likely to have gone unreported. Since 2012, 11 deminers have lost their lives in clearance accidents across Kurdistan, IKMAA said.

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Amazon dreams of UAVs, but uses UGVs

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With a great deal of fanfare, Amazon announced last spring that it intended to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for deliveries. While UAVs delivering books and DVDs remains a fantasy, in the real world the under appreciated Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) are doing the hard work of stacking holiday goods.  The story below originally appeared in NPR’s All Tech Considered.

Amazon Unleashes Robot Army To Send Your Holiday Packages Faster

For many online retailers, Cyber Monday is likely to be the peak shopping day of the year. To handle the onslaught of orders, Amazon has begun rolling out a new robot army.

The Amazon order-fulfillment center in Tracy, Calif., is more than a million square feet — or 28 football fields, if you prefer — filled with orange and yellow bins flying this way and that on conveyor belts. Chances are, if you ordered a bunch of items in the San Francisco Bay Area recently, Amazon put that box together here.

“Whether it’s consumables or toys or electronics, with 3,500,000 items plus in this building, the odds are, pretty much anything you wanted was likely here,” says Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations and customer service.

At most warehouses, goods are held on shelves, and it’s up to humans to go out into them to stock or retrieve stuff. But with technology that Amazon acquired when it purchased Kiva Systems in March 2012, the goods move to the humans. Orange robots the shape and size of ottomans zip under shelves, lift them up and whisk them to stations where people like Amazon’s Reginaldo Rosales are waiting.

As each shelf arrives next to Rosales, packed to the gills with all sorts of items, a computer terminal displays the specific thing he’s supposed to grab — in this case a thermometer — and where on the shelves it is.

“Now it’s telling us the Monopoly electronic banking game,” Rosales says. “We pick the item, we give a six-sided check — make sure it’s not damaged — and it tells us what bin. And you confirm it.”

Kiva’s concept has been around for years now, but this rollout provides an opportunity to see it at great scale.

With this system, not only is there no need for workers to march for miles up and down the aisles — there’s no need for aisles at all, which means Amazon can squeeze 50 percent more product into its warehouses.

You might presume this means Amazon would hire fewer humans, but Senior VP David Clark says Amazon is hiring more people — 14 percent more than during 2013’s holiday season — to accommodate increased demand.

“As these buildings get more selection, they do more volume,” Clark says.

Besides, an entirely mechanical workforce simply wouldn’t work yet, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Andrew McAfee, for the same reasons robots still would make lousy doubles tennis partners.

“Robots aren’t really, really good at manual dexterity. Their vision systems are often not as good as our vision systems,” McAfee says.

But the co-author of The Second Machine Age says the robots are at least as good as people at covering ground in warehouses and hauling merchandise. So why not let them do it?

There are 15,000 Kiva machines whisking around Amazon warehouses across the country; the company’s engineers already are developing a next-generation robot.

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Unmanned Underwater Vehicle maps Antarctic Ice [VIDEO]

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An Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV)  braved the hostile Antarctic seas to give us a view of the underside of sea ice.  When combined with satellite and other data, this should produce the first 3-D map of Antarctic sea ice.

Read the scientific paper here and/or watch the Reuters video below. (Warning-short ad before the video)

 

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AMREL OCU & forensic investigation [VIDEO]

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Creative use of an unmanned system originally designed for military applications. This PackBot collects forensic evidence for property claims. You can see AMREL’s Operator Control Unit at 47 seconds, 1 minute & 7 seconds, and other places in this video.

It is interesting how the same capabilities that makes the PackBot useful for detecting explosive ordinance can also be used for other purposes.

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Ebola fighting robots [VIDEO]

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Scientists are brainstorming ways of using unmanned systems to fight Ebola.  This short video covers a number of interesting issues, including telepresence, the role of robots in healthcare, current capabilities of unmanned systems, and the age-old quandary of legs vs. wheels.

 

Perhaps the fear surrounding Ebola and other dangerous diseases will increase resources for developing unmanned capabilities.

 

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Global economic implications of robot penguins [VIDEOS]

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You may have seen this video of an Unmanned Ground Vehicle shaped like a penguin chick:

As strange as it may sound, penguin robots have an important role to play in the emerging world economic order of the 21st century.

Whether you believe in climate change or not, a lot of very powerful countries take it seriously. Eyes are turning to our presumably warming polar regions and their now available resources.

The Arctic has large oil and gas deposits. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, declared, “Offshore fields, especially in the Arctic, are without any exaggeration our strategic reserve for the 21st century.” United States, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia have already received licenses for Arctic oil exploration.

Agriculture may be the last thing you think of when you regard the Arctic, but significant increases in food production are expected to occur in Russia and Greenland. Of course, some commercial ships seeking an Asia-European route will find an ice-free northwest passage to be an attractive alternative to the Suez Canal.

The Antarctic also has its attractions. Some claim that it has “…largest underexploited fishery in the world” (East Asia Forum).  Large amounts of oil, coal and other valuable minerals have been found in Antarctica.

However, the legal status of the Arctic and Antarctic are poles apart. The Arctic Sea is surrounded by nations who have longstanding claims to the area. Arctic counties include Russia and a number of NATO members.  New resources and traditional adversaries sound like an explosive combination, but so far the conflicts have been minimal.  Still, I would not be surprised to see military strategists discussing the defense of our Northern Frontier.

Unlike the Arctic Sea, Antarctica is a kind of “no man’s land,” govern by an international “treaty regime.”  Coming into force in 1961, this treaty bans militarization, and establishes Antarctica as a “scientific preserve.”

Mining and other exploitative activities are forbidden. In a resource-starved world, many do not expect this ban to last forever. In the yet-to-be-determined date, when the Antarctic goodies are divided up, how can a country make sure that it gets it rightful share?

Since science is the sole legitimate activity in the Antarctica, nations are securing future claims through the establishment of research stations.  “You put a huge flag on a flagpole close to the research station,” says Klaus Dodds, a professor of geopolitics at the University of London. “It is not very subtle” (Economist).

Countries who are either conducting research or have expressed an interest in doing so, include Malaysia, Japan, India, Australia, China, South Korea, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

China alone is spending 55 million dollars a year on multiple stations. Over 350 places in Antarctica now have Chinese names.

Not everyone in the scientific community is happy about this new found enthusiasm for research.  Some studies have been criticized as being transparently worthless, and even harmful to the local wildlife.

Enter the robot penguins. Unmanned penguin vehicles enable scientists to observe and take physiological measurements of penguins without stressing everybody’s favorite flightless water fowl. The penguins are safe from harassment, research is performed, and the sponsoring country reinforces its claim to the future exploitation of Antarctic resources.

Since they have proven useful for both research and nationalistic aspirations, there are more than one type of penguin robot.

This one features a robot that glides elegantly through a flock of penguins:

Another robot encounters true love and jealousy:

Finally, if you wish to get in on this “penguin gold rush,” PBS Nature demonstrates how to build your own penguin robot:

You may decide to leave penguin robot building to another person. Just remember the next time you view a penguin robot video, you are not just witnessing the scientific investigation of a cute animal, but you are also seeing economic forces that may determine how much your grandchildren pay for a gallon of gas.

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Robot Selfie of the Month

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Below is a selfie taken by the Rosetta spacecraft, as it approaches a comet. Not only can you see the dumbbell-shaped comet in the upper background, but one of the spacecraft’s solar arrays are visible.

Rosetta will deliver its lander, Philae, to  the comet on November 12.  This is the first-ever attempt at a soft touchdown on a comet.

 

Rosetta comet

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End-users want UGVs now

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UGVs-resized-600Ground wars are winding down (kind of, maybe), so the speeded-up acquisition process for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) is slowing down.  However, American soldiers are still performing explosive ordnance disposal.  Not only do they want their UGVs, but they also want them souped-up with more reliable communications, common controllers, and delivery trucks that automatically unload.  And they want them now.

National Defense Magazine published a highly informative article on the disconnect between end-user needs and the acquisition of UGVs.  If you want to know about the state of UGV development within each military service, or if you just need another reason to rail against the  notoriously slow procurement process, you got to read this article.

(The following article originally appeared in National Defense Magazine as Slow Pace of Robot Acquisition Programs Frustrates End Users.)

Ground robots from the outset of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were hailed as life-savers and an example of how off-the-shelf technologies could be sped into the field without the cumbersome Defense Department bureaucracy.

Those days are over.

End users of explosive ordnance disposal robots said at a recent conference that the Pentagon’s procurement process is clearly not working for them.

Meanwhile, a Navy EOD program of record to replace the off-the-shelf Talon and PackBot models has floundered. Entering its seventh year of development, it has failed to field its first lightweight robot, and the Air Force recently pulled out of the program, citing delays.

The Army also wants to produce a multi-purpose ground robot, but the earliest it could be fielded is 2021, a senior official said.

“The way the government acquires things through its acquisitions programs has to change,” said Chief Master Sgt. Douglas Moore, an Air Force EOD technician. 

In 2007, the Navy, the executive agent for producing bomb disposal robots, embarked on its Advanced EOD Robotic System (AEODRS) program, which would replace its heavy, Andros platforms that pre-dated the post-9/11 conflicts, as well as the off-the-shelf robots that were sped into the field as roadside bombs became a scourge in Iraq.

A Navy official at the National Defense Industrial Association ground robotics conference in San Antonio in 2008 described the family of three robots. The service would develop the system in three increments. Increment 1 would be a backpackable robot in the 35-pound range. Increment 2 would be around 130-pounds, somewhat similar to the size of the widely used PackBots and Talons, which must be transported in a vehicle. Increment 3 would be a large, towable robot intended for large ordnance. The 485-pound Andros robots those would replace are the only ground robot programs of record in the military today. All others were acquired through rapid equipping initiatives.

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The next-generation EOD robots would be based on an open architecture system, where components, sensors and tools could be swapped out as needed.

The Navy later announced that vendors would compete for contracts to supply the components rather than a winner-take-all competition to build and integrate the robots.  

Six years later, at the same NDIA conference held in College Park, Maryland, the Navy still had not fielded the basic 35-pound robot, and the Air Force said it would no longer participate in the increment 1 program. The Navy finally released its request for proposals for increment 1 components in June. 

“By the time we get it, it’s 10-year-old technology,” said Moore, who had heard the program referred to as “abbreviated.”

“I don’t know what ‘abbreviated’ means. But 10 years is not abbreviated for me. Absolutely not,” he added.

The lack of progress on the Navy’s program of record is prompting the Air Force to seek an off-the-shelf robot weighing under 30 pounds. A request for proposals for 160 systems, including 10 years of support, will be released in the first quarter of 2015, according to Robert Diltz, airbase acquisition branch chief at the Air Force Civil Engineering Center. 

Moore said: “That is part of the reason why the Air Force pulled out of the AEODRS increment 1 program. One, there were some slippages to the program that put some money at risk, and the technology by the time we would get it would not be what it is today.”

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The Army is also looking to field an upgradable robot with open architecture that would be able to perform multiple tasks, said Heidi Shyu, assistant secretary for the Army for acquisitions, logistics and technology. The current timeline would not have it fielded until 2021, and the Army would have to consider purchasing a “stop-gap” robot in the meantime, she said.

Chris O’Donnell, staff specialist at the joint ground robotics enterprise at the office of the secretary of defense, said $1 billion has been spent on ground robots over the past 10 years.

“Unfortunately as the war ended and the [overseas contingency operations] money started to dry up, the requirements weren’t really there to go, ‘Where is the next phase of development for ground robotics?’” he said.

Interest in the technology within the Defense Department remains high, he said. Many senior officers have grown up with ground robots, he noted.

But the services now have to go back to “programs of record” and more rigorous test-and-evaluation standards, O’Donnell said. He listed about a half dozen organizations in the department that will be involved in deciding the future of ground robots in the military, including his own. The purpose of the OSD’s joint ground robotics enterprise is to encourage the services to work together.

O’Donnell was asked in an email after the conference why the Army would take so long to field a robot that, on the surface, sounded identical to what the Navy has spent seven years developing: a standard, open architecture system where components, sensors and tools could be added as needed.  

“The Navy and Army technical folks have been working together for the last few years to refine an open architecture that they can both use for future efforts,” he replied. It is called the “unmanned ground vehicle interoperability profile.”

The long-wait periods were because of funding issues, he said. “The DoD funding cycle waits for no one, and the services have done a good job in identifying capability needs and getting those capabilities resourced in the out-year service budgets,” O’Donnell wrote.

It will be his job to ensure the Army and other services leverage the work done on the open architecture system, he added.   

Moore was joined on a panel by six other EOD technicians, many of whom had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and had returned from the war zone within the last six months.

They had a laundry list of features that they would like to see incorporated into current or next-generation bomb disposal robots, although most were cynical that they would see them anytime soon.

Army Master Sgt. David Silva wanted better communications connectivity in his EOD robots. This was an example of something that is available today, but hasn’t found its way to the field yet — at least not for ground robots. He sometimes loses his feeds from his robots after a couple hundred meters.

Meanwhile, an infantryman serving with him hand-launches a light-weight unmanned aerial vehicle “and he’s getting a positive feed and is controlling this thing six clicks away. Clearly it’s not a weight issue. It’s a big robot, and I’m not bound by weight,” he said.

“He has a high-definition feed, and I’m saying ‘What in the world do you have that I don’t have?’”

Moore said he would like to see some basic autonomy. Why can’t operators when arriving on scene push a button and let the robot unload itself from a truck? That would let the team focus on other tasks for 15 minutes.

Cars can parallel park themselves nowadays, he noted. “I’m not exactly sure why we’re not there yet.”

Air Force Master Sgt. Gregg Wozniak would like to see a common controller allowing all the different robots to be operated from a tablet.  

Army Capt. Thomas Kirkpatrick warned that the next generation of robots may have to operate in “immature theaters.” Iraq and Afghanistan had repair depots where malfunctioning or damaged robots could be sent. That may not be the case in future conflicts where EOD technicians may be operating without a well developed logistics tail. They should have kits containing common parts that can be easily swapped out. 

Similarly, other technicians speaking at the conference asked for self-diagnostics. They would like the robot to inform them what is wrong with it so they don’t waste time swapping out parts that actually work.  

Silva said the new generation of off-the-shelf robots designed for dismounted operations in Afghanistan are not wholly satisfying. Their batteries lose their charges after one operation, for example. And a system that weighs a total of 35 pounds with controller and other accessories is still too heavy.  

“Once the battery is dead it is useless,” he said. There needs to be a way to recharge it in the field.

The light-weight robots “can’t go where we want [them] to go.” Technicians have to carry them closer to the target, which means more risk, Silva said.

The specialists are “currently compromising safety and distance because we don’t have the platforms that allow us to do what we want to do,” he added.

Moore said 35 pounds is still above the spectrum the lightweight robots should weigh.

“Pounds equal pain,” he said. “For every pound we have to put in that backpack, that is a pound of something we can’t take.”

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The EOD specialists were generally lukewarm to the idea of having a small remotely controlled drone to provide aerial reconnaissance, especially if they are only providing video feeds. Such concepts were tried in the field in Iraq but were not embraced. They did provide some security if an operator wanted to see what was over a wall. But troops currently have camera masts on their vehicles to give overhead views of bombs.

A drone with an infrared sensor, or other features that could directly help them diagnose the composition of bombs or find command wires buried in the ground, would be more useful, they said.

Other items on their wish lists were stronger arms, self-navigation and better cameras to see at night. 

Silva said the current robots aren’t designed for the tactics, techniques and procedures EOD technicians employ to disarm unexploded ordnance and IEDs.

“They don’t mirror how we would inherently approach an IED. … what we are doing is we are changing the way we handle IEDs to adapt to the equipment that is available,” he said.

Moore said: “Everything that we’re asking for costs a ton of money. And everything we’ve asked for, quite honestly, the services can’t fund today. We have dwindling dollars. … From an Air Force standpoint, it’s probably safe to say that if doesn’t revolve around an airplane, it is probably going to be pushed a little bit further back into the closet.” The same could probably be said of the Army and tanks and the Navy and ships, he added.

Other speakers echoed this frustration. Despite having a dangerous job, one that others depend upon so they can maneuver freely on the battlefield, their technology budget is miniscule compared to others.

Still, the moribund acquisition system, which cannot seem to put already mature technology into the hands of robot operators, is making matters worse, they said. Two vendors attending the conference spoke to the frustrations they had encountered.

One said there simply wasn’t any path for him to get the technology he has to offer into the technicians’ hands. He had quit attempting to win military contracts.

Another had developed an infrared sensor specifically for EOD technicians under a government contract. The Technical Support Working Group, which funds inventors and researchers to tackle tough counterterrorism problems, paid his company to design the sensor.

Noting that one of the EOD technicians said during the panel that he needed better infrared sensors, the vendor said he produced it more than three years ago, and that he could manufacture them for about $60 apiece.

“It’s ridiculous that I can’t get technology that the government paid to develop … over to you so you can use it. … It’s insane. It’s absolutely insane,” he said.

The panel moderator, Thomas Gonzalez, senior vice president of corporate development at Stratom Inc., a small business that provides EOD training and consulting services, said there was a lot of frustration among users and vendors.

“After such a long, drawn out war for them to be asking for stuff they were asking for 10 years ago, in my mind is a little bit of a tragedy,” he said.

Silva said the attitude in the military is, “Until it’s a problem, it’s not a problem.”  

With the Afghanistan war winding down, IEDs are not affecting most people’s day-to-day lives.

“It’s not a priority. We understand that. We’re going to be here [doing our job] regardless.”

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Will the unmanned future be American?

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droneThe unmanned community has been demoralized by the tightening of the Defense money spigot. Specifically, many are concerned that American leadership in this important field will fall behind as the Defense funding decreases. In a previous post, this blog reviewed “The Looming Robotics Gap” (Foreign policy) and found its fears of failing American unmanned superiority unwarranted.

However, it’s hard to keep a depressing idea down.  A more recent article, “Do Drones have a future?” (War on the Rocks), written by Paul Scharre, an expert with the prestigious and influential think tank Center for a New American Security, maintains the steady drumbeat of fear about American decline.

The two articles have much in common.  They both complain of the restriction of unmanned systems to niche areas (technological ghettos), and the hostility of the pilot culture to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Both used detailed information to support their points.  Whereas the earlier Foreign Policy article focused on competition by nation states and the threats posed by widespread commercialization, the later article is mostly concerned with attitudes within each military service.   Although, I remain skeptical of the alarm raised by the Scharre’s article, I do appreciate its comprehensive overview of each service branch.  You can follow the above link to read the whole article, or read my summary and analysis below.

 

Air Force

Considering the Air Force is the epitome of pilot culture that has restricted the development of unmanned systems, Scharre is surprisingly mild in his assessment of this service branch. He is especially complimentary of the Air Force’s new Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Vector. However, he criticizes it for not being funded.

Rob Culver, AMREL’s Director of Business Development Programs (DOD), who has many years of experience in procurement, finds this criticism wanting.

“For one thing the Vector document is not meant to be funded” he explained. “It is a ‘Vision and Enabling Concepts’ document.  It is for ‘Guidance’.”

Culver also sees the debates about the role of unmanned systems as typical for new technology.

“In some ways it mirrors the advent and adoption of armor versus horse cavalry, fixed wing aircraft versus rotary wing aircraft,” he argues. For a discussion about the adoption of machine guns, he recommends Grim Reaper: Machine-Guns and Machine-Gunners in Action by Roger Ford.

Scharre disparages the Air Force for not making the top position in overseeing unmanned systems a pathway to promotion.  He also advocates deploying autonomous, multiple, low cost, “expendable” UAVs in swarms.  It is not clear from the article if the Air Force is considering this or if Scharre is mentioning it, because he thinks it’s a good idea.

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Army

Compared to the Air Force, the influence of pilot culture in the Army is minimal.  Perhaps, this is why, according to Scharre, that it is furthest along in integrating unmanned systems.  He praises (rightly, in my opinion) the development of unmanned-manned teams.

He also discusses swarms again. Specifically, he criticizes the lack of funding for autonomy research.  Culver counters that there is funding for this (at least DARPA is doing research), and wonders if Scharre’s pro-swarm agenda is the real point of this article.

 

Navy

In his discussion of the Navy, Scharre resists the urge to mention swarming.  He does criticize the specifications of Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS). He writes that they are not “relevant against more sophisticated adversaries” (the “adversaries” to which he is obliquely referring consist of a large unidentified Asian country, whose name rhymes with “Dinah”). He also voices the often-heard suspicion that the Navy deliberately downgraded the requirements, so as to not compete with next generation of manned fighters.

Both Culver and I think Scharre is jumping the gun in regards to UCLASS.  The program is a work in progress, and the Navy has a process to follow through.

Frankly, I am amazed at the amount of progress that the Navy has already made.  One of the most difficult missions in the military is using a maritime platform for the deployment of combat aircraft. The fact that the Navy has already landed a UAV on a carrier suggests that they are not dragging their feet on unmanned systems.

 

Marines

The Marines do not have a lot going on with unmanned systems. They don’t like using the assets of other services, but their amphibious boats do not have much room for additional equipment.  Perhaps, the Marines would be more enthusiastic about adopting robots if they could find one that boasts that it’s tougher than all the other unmanned systems.

 

Conclusion

Scharre concludes that we are all doomed.  Well, no, he doesn’t actually write that.  In fact, he outlines a sophisticated vision for the role of unmanned systems, and warns that the US lead is “fragile.”

Both Culver and I feel that Scharre made some interesting points, and agree with most of what he said.  We are a little dubious of some of his criticisms and feel that the adoption of unmanned systems is facing obstacles similar to ones that challenged other new technologies in the past. Despite their skeptics, machine guns, airplanes, and armored vehicles have a firm place in modern forces. So will unmanned systems.

Speaking for myself, I am glad that the unmanned community has advocates like Scharre.  However, I still feel that in spite of bureaucratic obstinacy and funding problems, the US is in an excellent position to maintain unmanned dominance for some time to come.

To learn more about DoD’s unmanned plans, contact

Rob Culver at (603) 325-3376 or robertc@amrel.com

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Flexible robot withstands snow, being run over by car [VIDEO]

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Flexible Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) are nothing new, but this is one of the first to operate successfully untethered outside a laboratory environment. Is this robot cute or creepy?  You decide.

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