The Unmanned Tactical Autonomous Control and Collaboration (UTACC), a ground robot and small drone team, patrols a simulated town indoors in Ellis Hall at Marine Corps Base Quantico. (credit: Sgt. Terry Brady, US Marine Corps)
NEW ORLEANS—The problem with robots on the battlefield today, according to Marine Corps Colonel Jim "Jinx" Jenkins, is that they still have to be driven by humans. That's why the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense are researching ways for robots to act more like teammates on the battlefield than just another piece of hardware.
Jenkins, who serves as Director of Science and Technology at the Marine Corps' Warfighting Lab at Quantico, Virginia, said in a presentation at the Association for Unmanned Systems International's XPONENTIAL conference that while robots such as those used for explosive ordnance disposal and other roles on the battlefield take soldiers and Marines out of some dangerous situations, they take their operators out of the fight.
"A marine is driving, so we haven't improved our manpower situation, and sometimes it costs more manpower." he noted, since operators have to pay such close attention to what they're doing with the robot that they need someone watching their back. "We need to move toward autonomy" for robots and other uncrewed systems, he said. Eventually, the Marine Corps wants swarms of collaborating drones and robots to act at the command of a single operator as a force multiplier at every level of operations.
Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
No comments:
Post a Comment