Robotic mule vendors seek opportunities outside military.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

The idea to employ robots to carry gear for overburdened troops has been around for more than a decade.

Mechanized mules are at an advanced technology readiness level, and some have been used in war zones.

But with a slowdown in military spending and no formal requirements forthcoming, manufacturers are looking for customers outside of the armed forces.

Lockheed Martin is eying border patrol, perimeter security, mining, logging and construction markets for its robotic mule, said Myron Mills, the company's squad mission support system (SMSS) program manager.

"We are certainly looking at the possibility of those types of mission sets for this system and being able to take the man out of the loop," he said.

Robots are often applied to jobs that are dull, dirty and dangerous, and robots designed to autonomously carry gear for ground forces can be converted to other tasks, Mills said.

"The fundamental technology, the algorithms, sensors, computing, things that we have done so far will be very applicable to address some of those other markets," he added.

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John Deere introduced its M-Gator small utility vehicle in 1999 without a single specific market in mind. The company identified at least 10 different tasks users could perform with it. It went on to sell more than a half million of them, including to military customers.

In 2006, it created a robotic version, the R-Gator, in part to address the Army's effort to lighten soldiers' loads.

"When you make it autonomous, it is kind of up to your imagination what sort of missions it may or may not accomplish," said Mark Bodwell, the company's military vehicles manager.

Marc Raibert, founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, said there are several possible applications for ground robots in the emergency response, disaster recovery, security, law enforcement and agriculture realms, basically "anywhere that is too dirty or dangerous for people to go."

Boston Dymanics is most famous for its BigDog rough-terrain experimental robotic mule that walks on four legs. Unlike the other systems based on small vehicle chassis, BigDog stands two and a half feet tall, and actually resembles a mule. It moves at about 4 miles per hour and can carry 340 pounds.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and later the Army Research Laboratory have funded its development. Raibert has been working on four-legged robots that can move in difficult terrain since the 1980s.

BigDog is not ready for fielding...