Every once in a while, someone asks me to translate military jargon, or more often summarize a lengthy statement into an “executive summary.” Here are a couple of examples of my attempts to convert a dense forest of words into a simple “take home message.”At a gathering of unmanned systems professionals, I heard a lot of
griping about product development. Trying to deliver a system that the government wants was impossible, because of the time lag. Who knows what the Department of Defense would want or need 2 or 5 years from now? All participants in the meeting agreed that it was the governments’ fault. The Feds simply weren’t telling us what they wanted. Well, it’s not for the lack of trying. It seems every week there’s a new roadmap, report, vision, or long-term plan. I recently reviewed my personal collection of downloaded documents and came up with: Read more
Tight budgets = less robots?
The always interesting P.W. Singer had some interesting things to say
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
If the unmanned vehicles and systems’ community could trade acronyms for 
dollars, we’d pay off the national debt. One particular acronym, OPV (Optionally Piloted Vehicles), is popping up all over the place. Northrop Grumman unveiled Firebird, an aerial OPV for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance that boasts a 65 foot wingspan. The Army’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap outlines plans for helicopters that are both manned and unmanned. The Army also developed Autonomous Vehicle Navigation Systems (ANS) specifically for optionally piloted ground vehicles. Read more
The US Army has announced plans to increase the autonomy of its
Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). “We are moving along that spectrum from tele-operating to semiautonomy where you can send a robot from point A to point B without any intervention,” said U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Thompson, project manager with the Robotic Systems Joint Program Office (Army building smarter robots). To read the rest of the article, please click here.
Mike Castillo, AMREL’s Senior Architect for Robot Applications, just came back from the Ground Robot Capabilities Conference with all sorts of news.
“Research and development is out,” he reported. “Budget priorities have changed. DoD wants existing technologies with a small form factor that’s light and available right now.”
This news made AMREL happy since our product line is mature and even our new solutions are based on proven technologies. For example, at the conference, we successfully demonstrated our new payload controller. Based on the battlefield-tested Flexpedient technology, this payload solution is the first one with interoperable capabilities.
Future blog posts will feature more news about this year’s conference, our new payload controller, as well as other new AMREL solutions.
For more information about Flexpedient and interoperable solutions, watch the video on the Flexpedient page.
AMREL at the Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference
March 22 – 24, 2011 – Orlando, Florida – Booth #112
Flexpedient® Technology now extends existing radio modules’
capabilities to both our OCUs AND payload controllers
Come see AMREL’s latest platforms, including:
To find out about AMREL’s hospitality suite, contact Mike Castillo at:
Office: (626) 443-681, ext 190
Cell: (626) 482-8791
Email: michaelc@amrel.com
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?”
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.
We found a very interesting video from TED.com on the future of robotic warfare and we thought you might enjoy it!
How are robots changing war?
Peter Singer talks about how robots are changing how we fight wars and how robots will change the way we fight war in the future. How does using robots in war change public perception of war?
With thousands of robots already in the air and on ground of warzones, what part do they currently play in war and how will they change how we think and fight wars in the future?
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