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P. W. Singer, Tight Budgets, and the Future of Robots

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Tight budgets = less robots?
The always interesting P.W. Singer had some interesting things to sayDepartment of Defense Seal  in his article, “U-Turn: Unmanned Systems Could be Casualties of Budget Pressures”  (Armed Forces Journal).  In an era of shrinking budgets, he worries that funding for unmanned systems will suffer.

“As the Pentagon wrestles with declining overall budget numbers, the new becomes more directly threatening to the old. And in bureaucracies, the old is not only more established, but is often at an advantage in any battle.”

As evidence of his concern, he notes that out of the 25 current costliest Pentagon acquisitions programs, “… there isn’t a single U — for ‘unmanned’ — on the list.” Read more

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ISR and Unmanned Systems

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C4ISRThe C4ISR explosion
The need for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) is a major force driving the tremendous growth in unmanned systems. C4ISR systems constitute approximately 5% of many national defense budgets. One estimate of global C4ISR market in 2010 is $63.6 billion.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

 

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COTS Obsolescence & Total Cost of Ownership

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The initial purchase price of your rugged computer may only be aCOTS Obsolenense  small part of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Platform support, customization, integration, connectivity, and inadequate durability may make your “bargain” very expensive.  Will your rugged computer be good for your ROI five or ten years from now or just for today?

Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) products are attractive for the price and established supply chain. However, there is a fundamental problem buying mass-produced off-the-shelf items. New and upgraded products typically generate more profit than old ones. Corporations prioritize the overhead of product support for the greatest revenue earners, i.e. the new products. Support for older platforms is phased out. Read more

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Batteries, overburdened soldiers, and form factors

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National Defense Industrial Association has a highly informative  article,  Army, Marines Face Uphill Battle To Lighten Troops’ Battery Load, about batteries and the heavy load they impose on soldiers. Of the 130 pounds of gear a modern soldier lugs around, 35 may be due to batteries. This excessive weight limits his maneuverability and may even cause injuries.batteries

In addition, batteries are expensive (“An infantry battalion on a one-year deployment typically burns through $150,000 worth of batteries”).  The frequent need to replace them, as well as their complete lack of standardization, presents a logistical nightmare.   Read more

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Robots good. People bad.

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If the Frankenstein monster was tasked with analyzing the world’s Defense budgets, he would pour over mountains of paperwork and then in his famously concise manner, utter the following: “Robots Good. People Bad.”

The monster’s short summaryamrel blog robots good people bad  can be supported by looking at two different kinds of Defense budgets, those that are increasing and those that are shrinking.

In spite of what you may have heard about Secretary Gates’ highly publicized “efficiencies,” the US Defense budget, in real terms, is increasing. The President will ask for a $553 million for the non-war 2012 allocation, a 5% increase over the 2011 budget (Market Watch U.S. budget spat worries military contractors).  This is after a 2011 budget request that was 2.4% larger than the previous year (Center of Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Analysis of the FY 2011 Defense Budget) Read more

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Connecting “The Last Tactical Mile” with Mature Technology

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In a recent posting (Network-centric Warfare: Dead or Alive ?), I wrote about the debate concerning network-centric warfare.  In the wake of the “reorganization” and outright elimination of high-profile initiatives and programs associated with network-centric warfare, Defense vendors are anxiously wondering if it LTM 1will persist as a central doctrine for transforming the military.

Clearly, the military’s obsession with connectivity is far from over.  DARPA is actively working to overcome the military’s traditional anxiety about the security of distributed servers (Pentagon Looks to Militarize the Cloud).  The Army is running a contest for mobile applications and talking about issuing smartphones to every soldier (A Smart Phone for Every Soldier?). Solutions are being displayed for sticking 3G cellular pods on a variety of vehicles, including UAVs (Forward Airborne Secure Transmissions and Communications). 

So the forces that spawned network-centric warfare are still active, but as I concluded in the above-referenced blog post, so are the problems that have frustrated its implementation. Here’s a partial list of obstacles

  1. Money
  2. Lack of interoperability
  3. Money
  4. Development and acquisition pipeline logjam
  5. Money

According to at least one analysis, the current cost-climate climate means “… that the personnel and procurement budgets will be reduced to pay for O&M costs…” (Defense Industry Daily). As the demand for novel technology grows, acquisition budgets shrink.  Defense wants the latest and greatest solutions, they want them now, and they want them to have a TRL level of 9 before they even see them. Government paying for research, testing, validation and verification?  That’s so 20th century.

      Using mature systems to develop advanced, useful solutions for today’s challenges is not impossible.  Working with strategic partners, AMREL has developed System One, a Last Tactical Mile solution, a system composed of entirely battle-proven technology.

      “The Last Tactical Mile” is a classic problem of network-centric warfare. Front-line troops are demanding real-time information. The days are over when data for C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) only went to the “back-end” (headquarters located away from the front).  However, getting this information into hands of the warfighter is a tremendous problem.

      To appreciate the complexities of “The Last Tactical Mile,” imagine a team of Marines attacking a high value target in littoral waters. They might be deployed on an amphibious assault vehicle (whatever replaces the now-canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle).  In theory, this scenario could require connectivity among a UAV, external ship sensors, satellite networks, the amphibious assault vehicle, mother ship personnel, and the strike team deployed.  Space is limited aboard the ships and all equipment must be ruggedized in order to withstand the harsh maritime and combat environments.

      System One leverages AMREL’s broad range of from-factors for mature computing platforms, which are more than rugged enough to withstand the brutal vibrations of the high-speed landing craft,  the corrosive conditions of the sea, as well as the violent realities of warfighting.  AMREL’s durable, battle-tested PDAs are ideal for the Marine strike team.  AMREL’s portable, rugged tablets could maintain communication with the amphibious assault vehicle’s coxswain as well as the mother ship’s onboard crew. Our fully functional 19/2® servers are1/4 the size of normal rack-mounted units, so they’re perfect for the cramped quarters of the assault vehicle. Designed to be flexible and to maximize connectivity, AMREL’s computers would have no problem tying the whole thing together with a MESH network.

      System One has already successfully demonstrated the connectivity and reliability required for such a scenario. It can be installed on any vehicle, land or sea. It would function perfectly in the high-speed Stiletto boat and is small enough to fit in even the most crowded MRAP vehicle. In fact, it’s so compact, it is even man-portable.

      An example of an advanced solution using mature, field-tested components, System One demonstrates that with careful strategic teaming and a bit of imagination, diminished government resources for research and testing can be leveraged into an opportunity.

      For a more detailed discussion of “The Last Tactical Mile” and System One, please see IDGA’s interview with Luke McKinney, an expert in military intelligence operations and joint mission analysis.

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      Network-centric Warfare: Dead or Alive?

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      One of the guiding principles for the defense community has been network-centric warfare. Most, if not all, weapon systems developed in the last decade have been evaluated by this standardnetwork centric warfare.

      Recently, the Department of Defense announced the closing of Networking and Information Integration (NII), an office closely associated with network-centric warfare. With the past elimination of Future Combat Systems, the Office of Force Transformation and other high-profile endeavors, some are wondering if the emphasis on network-centric warfare is waning.  Dr. Loren Thompson, in his The Twilight Of Network-Centric Warfare article, went as far as to say “…network-centric warfare is an idea whose time has passed.”

      If true, this would have enormous implications for those tasked with getting the best possible technologies to warfighters.  The abandonment of this established doctrine of network-centric warfare would introduce a new variable in the already difficult task of providing combat systems. Has the idea that launched a thousand PowerPoint presentations really been discarded?

      For the rest of the article, click here.

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      Robots shrink as their budgets grow

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      Recently, this blog analyzed Defense budgets for unmanned systems (Robots good. People bad).  We took the relatively uncontroversial position that whether or not the Defense budget itself grows, the funding for unmanned systems will increase.

      ABI Research seems to support our conclusion in a new report that states,”…the global market for military robotics will grow from $5.8 billion in 2010 to more than $8 billion in 2016.”  This will happen in spite of “…continuing weak economic conditions that negatively impact spending on defense systems; a dearth of active military conflicts for most of the world, which reduces the need for new defense systems…”

      Ironically, while unmanned budgets grow, the robots themselves are becoming smaller.  In the cleverly titled “Robots Forced To Carry Out Unspeakable Acts,” Strategy Page.com details the evolution of Unmanned Ground Vehicles.  User input from warfighters favors lighter and more compact systems, so the Army is developing and purchasing Small Unmanned Ground Vehicles (SUGV).

      Smaller sizes are not just for land vehicles. Aviation Week reports on the popularity of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) in “U.S. Army Explores New Small UAS.”

      The shrinking form factors of unmanned systems confirms a deeply held suspicion of mine; when you or I see the latest unmanned system, we think, “Gee, that’s cool! What does it do?”  When a soldier sees it, he thinks, “I sure hope I don’t have to carry that thing.  How heavy is it?”

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      Beyond the tweak: End-user communication solutions

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      Many people regard “end-user input” as something that happens at the end of a development process. However, the role of social media in the recent unrest in Middle East reminds us that end-users can be used for more than just “tweaking” solutions prepared by professionals.  Faced with government cut-off of networking services, organizers are finding ingenious ways of using communication platforms. More and more, “ordinary people” are demonstrating creativity in all stages of the solution-development process.

      Numerous examples of end-user resourcefulness are detailed in the Economist’s “Not just talk.” In developing countries, a cell-phone may be the only available computer, so people make the most of it.  Farmers look for the best market prices, consumers track fake drugs, students take English lessons, and the unemployed look for work.

      Cell-phones, especially smart phones, have also attracted the attention of the Defense establishment. While there has been formal research of smart phone applications, (The War App: Smart Phones Could Control Drone Camera discusses one of many efforts), the Defense community is also turning to end-users as a source of development.

      As reported in by IStrategyLabs in “Apps for the Army Winners – Doubling Our Expectations,” a contest open to soldiers and civilians employed by the US Army resulted in many useful mobile and web applications.  The success of this competition defied skepticism that said:

      “ · The Army is too big and slow to do something like this

      · Soldiers don’t know how to code

      · Soldiers don’t know anything about security

      · The apps will be low quality – leave the development to the pros

      · The process will kill any excitement in the program”

      In fact, “This program has taken the software development life-cycle down from an average of more than 1 year to roughly 90 days.  Soldiers are now empowered and incentivized to build solutions to their own problems rather than rely on outside actors to big them the tools they need.”

      The imagination of soldiers extends beyond communication solutions. Reputedly, the first armed robot used in theater was an ordinary IED-hunting Unmanned Ground Vehicle that had been jerry-rigged with weaponry by forward-placed soldiers. In NDIA’s  ‘Robot Army’ in Afghanistan Surges Past 2,000 Units,  Marine Corps Lt. Col. Dave Thompson, Project Manager for the Joint Project Office for Robotics systems (JPRO), indicated that soldiers are maintaining their inventiveness, “They are using them in ways we never expected.”

      Early input by end-users accelerates the development process and improves the quality for the delivered solution. AMREL is in the solutions business, so we constantly seek early input from end-users at the Robotics Rodeo, Tactical Network Topology (TNT) field experiments and other events.

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      AMREL Joins EDGE® Innovation Network

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      American Reliance, Inc. (AMREL) announced that it has joined the EDGE® Innovation Network, an initiative of industrial, academic, and government leaders that use cooperation to accelerate the delivery cycle of new capabilities to warfighters and first responders.

      AMREL is best known for its ROCKY line of rugged, mobile computers, trusted by warfighters for over 20 years.  AMREL has customized its ROCKY platforms for common robotic control, handheld multimodal biometrics, mobile mesh networks, hybrid off-grid energy systems, and battlefield medical applications.

      “Our involvement in the EDGE Network will be a win-win experience” explains Richard Lane, Vice President of Strategic Business Development. “This brings new opportunities to the company for collaboration, while allowing us to offer our expertise in rapid prototyping and customization of our rugged mobile computer line – as well as introducing our hybrid battlefield energy systems to the Defense and Public Safety industries.”

      Pete Palmer, EDGE Innovation Network director, said, “The EDGE bridges gaps between end-user needs and current capabilities by rapidly identifying, prototyping and promoting new solutions. By applying the EDGE process, the government can quickly and cost-effectively review innovative products that can be delivered to users within months rather than years.”

      Sponsored by General Dynamics C4 Systems, the EDGE has successfully delivered innovations including a Soldier Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Receiver to the U.S. Army. Currently, there are over 10 projects in development. Worldwide, there are currently six EDGE Innovation Centers and over 160 members.

      “AMREL participation in the EDGE Network is an expression of our basic business model,” says Mr. Lane. “We succeed in highly competitive fields by actively seeking feedback from end-users, and matching their needs to the latest innovations. Teaming with strategic partners to rapidly deploy ‘best of breed’ technologies is a familiar role for us.”

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