Proponents hope 'rodeo' can move Army ground robots forward.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: ROBOTICS

FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Representatives of some 50 companies, service research labs and universities gathered under the warm Georgia sun at a remote corner of this sprawling Army base to show off the state of their art at the second annual Robotics Rodeo.

Nestled among the concrete buildings of a mock village were three demonstration areas where small tactical robots darted in and out of doorways. At a fourth site, tele-operated earth-movers shoveled dirt among a stand of trees. Next to that, SUVs autonomously drove around a track.

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All of this happened as officials from the Army Maneuver Center of Excellence watched.

And that's no accident, said Jim Overholt, senior research scientist in robotics at the Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center.

The center of excellence, located at Fort Benning, is now responsible for writing requirement documents for ground robots.

"Many of the government folks who are here are the ones who are going to help us craft requirements for the future," Overholt told National Defense.

The deployment of ground robots during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has mostly been ad hoc. Explosive ordnance disposal teams from all four services were the first to widely use remotely (operated machines to help them search and destroy roadside bombs. Other ground forces have sent them into buildings and caves to perform reconnaissance.

The Navy is the executive agent for the EOD robots and is busy creating next-generation bomb disposal drones. If the Army is to purchase and integrate other so-called mechanized soldiers, the documentation that will allow that to go forward must come from the maneuver center.

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"Right now one of the most critical areas is really defining the hard requirements that the community can go out and respond to," said Overholt. Vendors want to know what the Army wants, so they know where to invest their research dollars.

The rodeo was the brainchild of Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, former commander of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 3rd Armored Corps, who was perhaps unique in the Army. He was a combatant commander who held a master's degree in robotics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lynch, who has since been promoted to oversee the installations command, was a vocal proponent of fielding more robotic systems, including those that are armed. He helped organize the first rodeo in September 2009 at Fort Hood to specifically show Army leadership that the technology was mature-enough to be used in battle zones, where they can save soldiers' lives, he said.

Showing mature technologies to senior Army leaders is important, Overholt said, but the event in its second year has evolved. Having officials from the maneuver center observe the demonstrations is key, he added

"As much as Gen. Lynch nailed it the first year by saying we need to do this, the emphasis this year is to try to get that requirement community engaged and to help us write...