13 August 2009

Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan spur automated weapons

Roadside bombs, civilian warriors, and urban warfare are placing onerous tasks on coalition troops in the Middle East. Most deaths and casualties are remotely inflicted, often wirelessly.

With that, the U.S. is pursuing new weapons and tactics to fight these wars.

The New York Times reported this scene from testing grounds in the desert west of the U.S.:

As the mock attack began on the sprawling military base here, tiny drones hovered overhead, peering through the windows to see insurgents gathered inside the houses. Small robots—like R2-D2 in “Star Wars”—crawled through some of the doors, flashing back live video of the startled enemy’s positions. Electronic sensors placed nearby watched escape routes. In addition, a battery of six-foot-high missiles stood at the ready farther out in the desert to destroy vehicles that tried to rush in to help the insurgents.

The new equipment that Boeing and other contractors are developing will cost about $2 billion for the first seven brigades.

The Pentagon is shifting contracting toward more incremental upgrades and a greater use of commercial technologies. For instance, iRobot, a Massachusetts company that has developed robots for home vacuum-cleaning and industrial uses, is building the Army’s robots.

The drones resemble flying lawnmower engines about the size of a beer keg that land on four curved wire feet. With the cameras on the drones acting like spotters, the ground-launched six-foot missiles, called “rockets in a box,” will eventually enable soldiers to destroy hostile forces more than 20 miles away.

The robots could also search caves and cars at hazardous checkpoints. The sensors could guard outposts and monitor areas cleared of insurgents, freeing more soldiers to fight.

The new drones, made by Honeywell, hover over a crucial spot on a battlefield like helicopters, instead of flying in a wide circle. If an assault squad needed, for example, to toss the 35-pound robot though a window, where it happened to land on its back, it would flip itself over and start shooting video.

The sensors, designed by Textron, send alerts and pictures from the field or from the inside of buildings. A buried device can even discern from seismic readings whether people, trucks, or tanks are passing by or approaching.

The precision-guided missiles could represent a major advance. Fifteen of them can fit into a refrigerator-size launcher. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin designed them to go over or swerve around hills and mountains and update their course in midflight. The warheads are supposed to be powerful enough to destroy a moving tank.

For related information, go to www.isa.org/motionsystems.