War machines: for now, lethal robots not likely to run on auto-pilot.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Unmanned Technology

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SAN DIEGO -- Bart Everett, technical director for robots at the Navy's space and naval warfare systems center, acknowledged that the military isn't ready for the next generation of mechanized soldiers.

He is nevertheless overseeing the development of a robot soldier. One that will enter into a building alongside a human companion uses sensors to seek out enemies, then fire lethal or nonlethal weapons to eliminate targets.

He calls the concept the "war fighter's associate" and likens the human-robot relationship to that of a hunter and a bird-dog.

"What we have to do is work with the war fighter and figure out what [he] will accept.... If I lay this on him right away, it's going to freak him out," Everett said.

The problem boils down to the classic disconnect between those who work on cutting edge technologies in the lab and the users in the field, he said. The engineers have no idea what the soldier really needs and the conditions he encounters. And the soldiers don't know what technologies are available to them and what they can do.

Everett said the lab is about 10 years ahead of where he expected to be in terms of achieving autonomy for robots.

Autonomy means little or no need for an operator to use a joystick. A reconnaissance robot, for example, can be sent into a bunker without any radio link, and come out with a complete map populated with icons showing the location of people, weapons, or evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

And it may mean allowing that robot to have a weapon to defend itself in case it comes under attack.

That by itself could cause skeptics to shake their heads. Letting a robot enter an enclosed space with a weapon, and giving it the ability to defend itself, could be too far of a leap for the military community to accept, he said.

As Everett sees it, the way robots are controlled has not evolved since World War II.

The fact that there were robots used that long ago in wartime is a surprise to most even those in the industry, he said. The Germans built 8,000 Goliath suicide robots. They were a few feet long, moved on tank-like tracks and were loaded with explosives. They were designed to drive up to bunkers or tanks and then blow up.

One reason that they are largely forgotten today is that they were not very successful, said Everett. who is writing a book on the topic.

They were tele-operated--meaning that they needed a soldier to control the machine through a radio link. These links...