First armed ground robot readied for deployment.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: UPFRONT

The robot army is coming. A concept touted by science fiction novelists for decades, the first armed ground robots may roll into the field as early as this month, according to Army and industry officials.

Unlike the sci-fi robots that enslave mankind, these will not have autonomous control. Two years of safety testing will ensure that the machines only fire when commanded to do so, officials said.

"There's a huge revolution about to take place in the next two months when we put the very first armed robot on the ground into combat," said Charlie Dean, program manager for advanced robotics at Foster-Miller Inc., the system's contractor.

The special weapons observation reconnaissance detection system, SWORDS, is a combination of two commercial-off-the-shelf items, the Talon IIIB robot and a standard M249 machine gun.

Up to 83 will be deployed in Iraq pending Pentagon approval, according to Michael Zecca, SWORDS program officer.

The goal is to "find, fix and finish the enemy" while reducing the exposure of troops to live fire, and therefore, the potential for casualties, Zecca said.

The program was put on an accelerated testing schedule after the Army sent out an operational needs statement in 2004. The statement allowed the acquisition process to proceed on a quicker schedule. Zecca expects the two-year testing process to be cut substantially for future versions. "It was a learning process," he said at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference

The testing "has been a struggle," Zecca admitted. Safety was the number one concern. The goal was to ensure that the robot fired only when the user intended it to fire, he added.

SWORDS is mounted on the Talon IIIB robot, manufactured by Foster-Miller, which has sent dozens of the models to Southwest Asia, mostly for explosive ordnance disposal teams. They have also been used for reconnaissance in urban environments and caves in Afghanistan.

The first wave of SWORDS robots will carry the M249. The M240B medium machine gun will be mounted next, and approval to do so will likely come within months. The idea, Zecca said, is to take baby steps in the system's development.

The first robots to be fielded will carry 200 rounds. Future development plans call for increases in the amount and types of ammo, Zecca said. The robot will be able to operate about a mile beyond the operator, who will monitor the unit on a view screen.

The system was designed to be used by a single soldier. Dean said...