TodayWar College hosts demonstration of robotics
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Morgan Jones I looks over the robotics display with his son, Morgan Jones II, 12, left, and his daughter Daryan Jones, 10.(Jason Malmont/The Sentinel)
Warren Tibbs, an engineering and electronics technician, looks over one of the RONS — remote ordinance neutralizing system — on Thursday at the U.S. Army War College.(Jason Malmont/The Sentinel)
From robots that can pick up and dispose of bombs to unmanned planes that can be launched to perform reconnaissance, the fourth annual Robotics Day Thursday at the Army War College gave students a chance to see newly fielded and emerging robotic technologies.
“It’s absolutely fascinating to see one,” said Col. Tom Cowan as he gazed at a SWORDS unmanned robot that can shoot a machine gun. “I’ve seen all the pictures.”
A student at the war college, Cowan is writing his master’s paper on robots.
“One of the major parts of my paper is the ethical issue of robots, allowing them to shoot,” he says.
Right now, a soldier uses a button to shoot the gun carried by the robot.
“Do we let that baby shoot on its own or do we always have someone pushing the button?” Cowan asks. The Geneva Convention has a distinction clause, he says. A soldier must distinguish between combatants and noncombatants.
Tim Everhard, of Foster-Miller, says three SWORDS robots will leave for Iraq in a month and a half with soldiers who have been training with them since August. The robots first were sent to Iraq in 2005 with the 5th Special Forces, Everhard says. Soldiers came back with changes to improve the robot and those changes are now integrated into the new models.
Cowan spent the last three or four months studying robots and was thrilled to see the actual machines and talk to representatives who could confirm information about them.
The robots can be up to 900 meters away from the soldier who fires them.
“That’s nine football fields,” Cowan says.
Bill Waddell, director of the command and control group, Center for Strategic Leadership, organized the event.
“We have done it for the students to introduce them to the technology they’ll use in the field in the future,” Waddell says. “They can actually see the systems that they have heard are saving lives in the field.”
This year, experts went into war college classes to talk about the equipment. Students have a chance to not just see the equipment but think through all the applications, Waddell says.
One of the systems that is saving lives is the iRobot. One version of it is used by bomb disposal teams both here in the United States and in Iraq.
Kevin Harrington, iRobot representative, says 700 of the robots are being used in Iraq for explosive ordinance disposal.
“They might find a car with a bomb in it,” Harrington says as an example.
Soldiers can drive the robot 300 to 400 meters. With tough treads, a powerful zoom camera and claws to open doors, the robot can recover the bomb.
Similar robots equipped differently can be used as bomb sniffers. They allow soldiers to do their jobs more safely and faster, Harrington says.
Sgt. Maj. Steven Hornbach works with the Army Research Laboratory.
“These are the senior leaders coming out and going into the field,” he says. “Where else are you going to bring all this equipment together in one location? It’s the time for them to see it now.”
Elias Rigas, also with the Army Research Laboratory, says some of the equipment is prototype and not yet in use.
“Unmanned systems are making a huge impact on saving soldiers’ lives,” he says.
