No accidents: Pentagon publishes new safety guidelines for unmanned vehicles.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: UPFRONT

The Defense Department for the first time has published comprehensive safety guidelines for the design and operation of joint-service unmanned vehicles.

The document, titled, "Unmanned Systems Safety Guide for DOD Acquisition," lists dozens of safety rules that should be followed by designers, engineers, manufacturers and operators of military robots, including unmanned aircraft and ground- and sea-based vehicles.

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Extensive safety rules and regulations already exist within the Defense Department and each military service, but this latest set of guidelines primarily are aimed at future "joint" systems that would be built and employed by more than one service.

Mark Schaeffer, the Defense Department's director of software and systems engineering, was in charge of drafting the safety regulations.

"Prior to the publication of this document, there was no guidance for joint systems," said Elizabeth Rodriguez-Johnson, special assistant for safety at Schaeffer's office. The organization reports to the deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

"With the ever increasing proliferation of unmanned systems, ground, air and sea, and with the growing complexity of these systems, including the capability to release weapons, it was essential that the Defense Department establish general safety guidelines for use by all services and manufacturers to help ensure the safe design and use of these systems in all operating environments, including joint military and commercial environments," Rodriguez-Johnson said.

Each service has different safety standards, so an unmanned system that is employed by the Army and the Air Force, for example, has to go through separate safety evaluations from each service. The introduction of joint-service safety standards can now save substantial costs and accelerate the delivery of unmanned systems, Rodriguez-Johnson says.

Most unmanned vehicles that currently are in operation--more than 3,000 in Iraq--were developed, tested and built by individual services, but in the future the Defense Department expects that more systems will be joint. These joint programs will be required to comply with the new safety guidelines before they get a seal of approval from the Pentagon's acquisition office, says Rodriguez-Johnson.

In addition to the unmanned systems guide, Shaeffer's office has written a new policy for safety reviews for U.S. Special Operations Command weapon systems. The...