Autonomous vehicles are already earning their stripes in combat. Now, they’re being fine-tuned as part of the military’s goal to save lives by removing humans from the battlefield:

In the foreseeable future, “sending in the troops” will entail deploying machines instead of people, if the military has its way. “Well before the end of the century, there will be no people on the battlefield,” predicts Robert Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Management and Technology. Indeed, the military is pushing for more machines in combat to minimize the loss of lives and to save money as well. By 2015, Congress wants one-third of all military vehicles to be unmanned.

So far, autonomous machines are proving effective in the battlefield. “Unmanned aerial vehicles (pictured on the left) are earning star status in the global war on terror and are topping combatant commanders’ wish lists,” writes Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service, in a government procurement publication. According to Miles, in 2004, the number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Iraq took off from less than 100 to over 400.

These aerial machines are serving as “eyes in the sky,” transmitting live images to the ground. They’re even proving that they can strike targets. The Air Force’s Predator UAV eliminated one of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants in Afghanistan with a Hellfire missile and since then, has provided direct targeting support in Iraq. Aside from the Predator, aerial machines range from the high-altitude, advanced Global Hawk, which is under development for the U.S. Air Force and is designed for long-term surveillance, to the Marine Corps’ hand-launched Dragon Eye system, already deployed in Iraq, which provides a snapshot of the operating area and disassembles to fit into a backpack.

Meanwhile, on the ground, unmanned vehicles are being called in for support as well. According to The Washington Post, 2010 is the target date for these autonomous ground machines to see service as all-purpose battlefield vehicles, sizing up battlegrounds, watching for land mines, or conveying supplies and troops to the front line. For example, United Defense Industries Inc., Arlington, Virginia, has built the Gladiator, a 1,600-lb. vehicle designed for remote reconnaissance. It’s small enough to be transported by Humvees, some helicopters and amphibious assault vehicles and sturdy enough to withstand 7.62-mm rounds. The machine will also have strike capabilities, so far demonstrating that it could be used to launch grenades and other munitions.

The military’s use of autonomous machines started in the mid-1980s when computer processors achieved the requisite speed to make them possible. In the 1990s, sensor technology took a leap forward, enabling these machines to gather more data about their environment. Today, autonomous systems can pinpoint their whereabouts utilizing global-positioning satellite links and communicate with comrades and commanders through wireless connections that switch off instantaneously when the signal is in jeopardy of being intercepted.

The earliest unmanned military vehicles built by the Defense Department were as big as UPS delivery trucks. Weighted down by massive computers, they only managed to travel 5 miles per hour in even terrain. Today, the U.S. Army is working on turning the eight-wheeled 18-ton Stryker, an armored truck currently in use in Iraq, into an unmanned vehicle that can maneuver through forests and desert environments and reach top speeds of 60 miles per hour on the road.

But while unmanned vehicles have improved tremendously throughout the years, there’s still a lot of work to be done. In fact, some researchers liken building robots to raising children. For example, for the Stryker to make even the most basic of movements, hundreds of thousands of programming codes and mathematical algorithms must be hardwired into its brain. “We need to work on the nervous system of the robots, so it can really learn on its own by picking up patterns based on its prior experience,” Charles Shoemaker, chief of the Army Research Lab’s robotics project office in Aberdeen, Maryland, tells The Washington Post.

Autonomous navigation is another hefty challenge for unmanned land vehicles. Developers are trying to find ways to enable them to navigate obstacles and traffic–an exceedingly difficult task. General Dynamics, Falls Church, Virginia, has been working on such autonomous navigation systems, securing a $185-million award to build between 30 and 60 automated-navigation prototypes for a range of vehicles.

There are also some kinks to work out with aerial systems that have already been used in combat. While the Marine Corps was pleased with the five-pound Dragon Eye, which was used extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have called for improvements such as longer ranges, better zooming-in capabilities, extended battery life and the option for recharging the energy source. Officials also point out that UAV efforts must be better coordinated. “We’ve had multiple UAVs operating in the same five-mile area, and they interfered with each other,” Capt. Renee Matthews, unmanned aerial vehicle project manager at the Marine Warfighting Lab, tells National Defense. “This has led to some losses.”

But these losses have not been human and that’s the primary advantage that unmanned machines bring. They save lives, and because of this, they represent the future of warfare for the U.S. military.

Sources:

Unmanned Aircraft Earn Starring Role in Iraq War
Donna Miles
GovPro
www.govpro.com/ASP/viewArticle.asp?strArticleId=104967&strSite=GOVPROSITE&st=61

Robots for No Man’s Land
Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post, January 30, 2004
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61717-2004Jan29&notFound=true

A Marine’s Best Friend
Machine Design, April 1, 2005
www.machinedesign.com/ASP/viewSelectedArticle.asp?strArticleId=58261&strSite=MDSite&Screen=CURRENTISSUE&CatID=3

Marines Refine Tactics for Unmanned Aircraft
Joe Pappalardo
National Defense, April 2005
www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2005/apr/sb-marines_refine.htm