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2014-06-01

Soldiers’ trusty sidekicks

Major focus on unmanned systems replacing humans on the front lines with machines

Roadside bombs in Afghanistan, mines in the Arabian Gulf’s shipping lanes, blazing infernos in downtown neighborhoods – danger seemingly lurks around every corner of certain nations and seas.

Throughout time, the question for military, government and local leaders has been how to make the world safer for troops, sailors, first responders and others in harm’s way. Today, the answer increasingly focuses on unmanned systems that reduce risk by replacing humans on the front lines with machines to conduct perilous resupply, reconnaissance and situational assessment missions.

Unmanned systems have come of age during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, proving their worth time and again. The value of unmanned systems is seen every day in Afghanistan, where they reduce the threats to coalition forces.

According to the US Department of Defense (DOD), US casualties in Afghanistan from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) dropped by nearly half in 2012 thanks largely to the decreasing number of troops and improved methods of avoiding and detecting them. However, these home-made bombs still caused 61 per cent of the wounds and deaths suffered by US.troops last year.

To combat IED and other insurgent threats, DOD has turned to industry to better protect troops, and unmanned systems have played a significant role. Re-supply convoys are one of the US-led coalition’s most hazardous missions. Long lines of trucks, tankers and support vehicles snaking along pockmarked roads present inviting target for insurgents.

Lives saved

One innovative system deployed to combat IEDs is the K-MAX unmanned cargo re-supply helicopter developed by Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace. Deployed in 2011, K-MAX has removed well over 600 convoy vehicles from the dangerous Afghani roads.

Marine Maj. Kyle O’Connor commanded K-MAX during its first six-month deployment. His 2013 letter endorsing K-MAX for the prestigious Collier Award describes a harrowing stretch of road known as “ambush alley” with “permanent scorch marks burnt into the earth.”

“We witnessed a number of firsts,” O’Connor wrote. “The most compelling (was) the first time Marine lives were being saved because one of their most dangerous missions was being taken on by an unmanned helicopter. Every piece of cargo flown via (K-MAX) is one piece of cargo that doesn’t need to put personnel in harm’s way going by ground convoy.”

Unmanned systems also offer other benefits. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) provide an invaluable reconnaissance capability that keeps troops out of danger.

Making inroads

“Unmanned aerial systems have changed warfare significantly. Our forces are now aware of what’s over the next hill before they are put into danger,” said Jay McConville, Lockheed Martin’s Unmanned Integrated Systems business development director. “UAS can perform many missions that required manned assets in the past, and increasingly at a small percentage of the cost. They are also able to safely cover target areas without putting pilots in harm’s way, and do so for long periods of time.”

With their pilots safe behind the front lines, UAS such as Desert Hawk, Fury, Indago Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) and Stalker Extended Endurance (XE) feature optical, infrared and other sensors that deliver persistent surveillance day or night.

While UAS grab most of the headlines, unmanned ground vehicles and maritime systems are also making inroads. Systems such as Squad Mission Support System lighten soldiers’ loads, improve combat readiness and perform critical re-supply and casualty evacuation missions.

At sea, mines can wreak havoc on shipping lanes. Now, unmanned underwater systems will soon replace the ships that sail into these hazardous waters to clear mines. Featuring an unmanned, autonomous remote multi-mission vehicle, remote mine hunting system will provide the primary mine reconnaissance capability for the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Mine Countermeasures Mission Package.

Benefits at home

Like other technologies initially developed for the military, unmanned systems also offer benefits to thecivil sector. Unmanned systems, especially UAS, can perform diverse missions for police, fire, border patrol and others who can use their capabilities.

Indago’s hover and stare reconnaissance capability is ideally suited for police and fire operations in congested urban settings. Stalker’s eight-hour endurance enables it to relay emergency communications and economically search oil pipelines for leaks. Farmers can use UAS to monitor crops for pest infestation and disease and help deliver fertilizer and water.

Soldiers’ trusty sidekicks

While some robots often go where humans can’t, others are designed to work alongside people. Lockheed Martin’s Squad Mission Support System (SMSS) initially was designed mainly to carry a squad’s battle gear to help lighten the load and make its mission physically easier.

Serving the US Army for five months in Afghanistan, this semi-autonomous unmanned ground vehicle worked in tandem with troops on-the-ground on transport and logistics, resupply, portable power and battery charging, and transport of infrastructure materials. Back in the US, SMSS demonstrated its surveillance capabilities by performing missions via satellite with its operator stationed 200 miles away.

SMSS also has demonstrated its effectiveness at defeating improvised explosive devices, and is being evaluated for a variety of civil applications, including firefighting, border surveillance and industrial security.

Lightening the load

Another ground-vehicle system designed to ease the workload on humans is AMAS. Short for Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System, AMAS offers driving assistance for autonomous convoy operation.

By integrating low-cost sensors and control systems onto US Army and Marine Corps tactical vehicles, AMAS can reduce the dangers of driving in a combat zone. Engaging AMAS’ autonomy features can lead to a reduction in crew fatigue, the elimination of rear-end collisions, enhancement of driver situational awareness and the ability to mount a more effective response to an attack.

In an August 2011 American Forces Press Service article, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, commanding general of the US Army Installation Management Command, underscored in personal terms in the potential value of autonomous systems.

“When I look at the 153 soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” Lynch said, referring to soldiers who died under his command in Iraq, “I know that 80 per cent of them were placed in a situation where we could have placed an unmanned system in the same job.”

In the plains of Namibia, millions of tiny termites are building a mound of soil, an eight-foot-tall “lung” for their underground nest. During a year of construction, many termites will live and die, wind and rain will batter the structure, yet the colony’s life-sustaining project will continue.

Inspired by the termites’ resilience and collective intelligence, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, no eye in the sky, and no communication. It uses simple robots — any number of robots — that cooperate by modifying their environment.

Harvard’s TERMES system demonstrates that collective systems of robots can build complex, 3-D structures without requiring a central command structure or prescribed roles. The TERMES robots can build towers, castles, and pyramids out of foam bricks, erecting staircases that let them reach the higher levels and adding bricks wherever they are needed.

Robots are not new to disaster response. In the 1980s, Carnegie Mellon University engineers built robots that entered and made repairs inside the damaged reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility, in the US and at Chernobyl, in the former Soviet Union. One of the first reported uses of robots in a search-and-rescue operation was in 2001 at the World Trade Center in New York after the 9/11 attacks.

Robotic Challenge

DARPA’s Robotics Challenge hopes to develop robots capable of assisting disaster response operations, especially in hazardous areas. Lockheed Martin’s entry features a humanoid robot in a state of supervised autonomy, which can complete simple tasks independent of the operator. For jobs requiring greater skill, a remote – largely untrained – operator assists the robot.

“The goal of the [challenge] is to do better, to improve society’s resilience to both natural and man-made disasters,” said DARPA Manager Gill Pratt. “We’re trying to build robots that go where it is too hard for people to go and do what is too hard for people to do, simply because the environment is too hostile.”

The head of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) recently told the Army Aviation Symposium that robots and unmanned systems could replace a quarter of the 4,000 soldiers in the Brigade Combat Team by 2040, creating a “a smaller, more lethal, deployable and agile force”.

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