Future Military Robots

Walking Military Robots Stumble Toward the Future

By Jeremy Hsu | December 31, 2015

PFC Marcus Beedle leads the mule-like robot known as the Legged Squad Support System on a patrol through open terrain at Fort Devens Mass. Beedle, working with other Marines from 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment learned how to control LS3 and work it into basic formations and maneuvers during the limited technical assessment at Fort Devens. Credit: Photo by Kyle Olson

A four-legged robotic mule that underwent years of field trials with U.S. Marines may never see action on future battlefields after being rejected as too noisy. But the U.S. military’s ongoing interest in walking military robots capable of moving like headless animals or even bipedal humans will almost certainly lead to other future prototypes.

Several versions of the robotic mule–made by Google-owned company Boston Dynamics–were built and tested for the purpose of carrying up to 400 pounds of equipment for soldiers and Marines. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab collaborated on testing the robot’s capabilities in obeying voice commands and automatically following infantry during foot patrols through rough terrain, according to Military.com. But the loud gas-powered engine on the largest robot, called LS3, ultimately represented a deal breaker. Marines were also unsure about how they might repair the robot if it broke down in the field.

“As Marines were using it, there was the challenge of seeing the potential possibility because of the limitations of the robot itself,” said Kyle Olson, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, in an interview with Military.com. “They took it as it was: a loud robot that’s going to give away their position.”

Boston Dynamics did produce a smaller and much quieter electric-powered version of the robot called Spot. That robot could move much more quietly, but lacked the LS3’s autonomous capabilities to automatically follow humans, navigate tough terrain and obey voice commands. It also could only carry about 40 pounds, which doesn’t help much in solving the combat load problem for overburdened Marines and soldiers.

So why did the U.S. military push for robotic mules in the first place? It’s part of a broader effort to lighten the combat loads carried by individual soldiers and Marines on foot. Such loads can easily exceed 100 pounds when accounting for weapons, body armor, food and water, batteries and equipment. In extreme cases, some unlucky Marines end up carrying up to 170 pounds. The heavy loads prevent soldiers and Marines from moving quickly during firefights and take a huge toll on their health in terms of limb and back injuries.

“Musculoskeletal injuries are the number one medical issue for the Department of Defense when it comes to encounters and evacuations from [the battlefield],” said Richard Shoge with the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command’s Military Operational Medicine Research Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The robotic mule project has currently reached the end of its DARPA contract. Future development of the robots for military purposes appears unlikely unless one of the U.S. military branches coughs up more money. Additional uncertainty comes from the fact that Google has stated it wants to move away from developing military robots under the existing contracts it inherited by acquiring Boston Dynamics and other companies, BBC News points out. The tech giant has also been reorganizing its robot companies, including Boston Dynamics, under the umbrella of its Google X research lab.

Still, Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, suggested that his company’s robotic beasts of burden have not necessarily reached the end as far as military applications. In an email exchange with Beta Boston, Raibert pointed out how each generation of the robots had reduced their noise levels by 10 to 20 times compared with predecessor robots.

“They are not as quiet as people and animals, but LS3 is about as quiet as a typical motor vehicle, such as a car or Humvee, and Spot is quieter,” Raibert told Beta Boston.

DARPA’s interest in walking robots has gone beyond just the four-legged variety. In 2015, the U.S. military research agency hosted a DARPA Robotics Challenge intended to test the capabilities of bipedal humanoid robots in a variety of real-world situations. The aim was to push for humanoid robots that could effectively navigate vehicles and buildings like humans. Ideally, such robots would even have the coordination to handle tools in accomplishing certain tasks. It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to see how such handy robots, capable of going wherever humans can go, might prove handy in a battlefield scenario.

Unfortunately, the two-legged robots had much more trouble with keeping their balance and recovering from falls compared with the rugged Boston Dynamics robots, as Popular Science pointed out. The Robotics Challenge contests generally fell far short of completing DARPA’s initial goals of having robots that could get into and drive human vehicles, clear away rubble from doorways, climb ladders, or use power tools to break through a concrete wall and create an exit for themselves.

So the year 2015 didn’t prove a breakthrough year for walking military robots. But even the smallest robotic baby steps may bring the world a little closer to the capable science fiction robots of “Star Wars,” “Ex Machina” and other Hollywood films.

Drones Aim to Carry Human Lives

By Jeremy Hsu | January 21, 2016 

The EHang 184 represents an electric, personal Autonomous Aerial Vehicle. Credit: PRNewsFoto/EHANG

Delivery drones have yet to begin showing up at doorsteps with packages from Amazon. But a new breed of drones could eventually begin carrying the most precious package of all in the form of human lives.

One such passenger drone resembles a giant quadcopter that can carry a single passenger on 23-minute flights at speeds of about 62 miles per hour. The Chinese startup EHang unveiled the drone, called the Ehang 184, at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January. Passengers use a tablet to set waypoints for the drone to follow and can click once for both takeoff and return, but the drone itself automatically handles the rest of the flying decisions. EHang representatives told Tech Insider and other news publications that they hope the passenger drone can hit the market starting sometime in 2016.

Drones could do much more than just act as personal helicopters. The U.S. military has a strong interest in autonomous drones that could fly injured soldiers from the battlefield to a hospital for treatment. In March 2015, U.S. defense firms demonstrated how a robot helicopter called K-MAX could evacuate a dummy standing in for a wounded soldier, according to Military.com. The K-MAX unmanned cargo helicopter, developed by Lockheed Martin and built by Kaman Aerospace, has flown 1,900 combat missions while delivering cargo for the U.S. Marine Corps.

The Israeli defense firm Tactical Robotics has also been working on a heavy-lifting ambulance drone capable of transporting two wounded warriors—or 1,100 pounds of cargo—during missions with a radius of about 31 miles. The unmanned aircraft, called AirMule, underwent its first autonomous, untethered flight test on Dec. 30, 2015. This year, Tactical Robotics hopes to demonstrate the AirMule’s ability to fly “beyond the line of sight” of human operators and follow a path through a forested area.

Such ambulance drones make perfect sense in risky battlefield situations where helicopters and other aircraft face the possibility of being attacked or shot down by ground fire. A frontline commander might decide it’s worth risking a drone to fly out a seriously wounded soldier who might otherwise die without medical attention at a hospital. It’s a perfect example of using a robot to do the dangerous work that a human helicopter pilot or crew might otherwise have to do. In the case of a drone such as the K-MAX or AirMule, human operators could remotely control the unmanned aircraft from safer positions away from the battlefield.

Personal passenger drones for civilians may need different justifications for their existence. It’s possible a passenger drone such as the Ehang 184 might replace the need for a piloted helicopter in some cases. But such passenger drones would first have to demonstrate fairly high standards for automated safety and backup systems to get flight approval from government regulators in civilian airspace.

Such challenges are similar to those facing companies trying to develop flying cars, except that the flying car idea almost makes more sense than a personal passenger drone. Companies such as Terrafugia envision their flying cars as being heavily automated and capable of flying themselves for the most part: effectively representing versatile robot vehicles that can both fly and drive on roads.

There is also the possible issue of trust. Most soldiers probably would not hesitate to fly aboard an ambulance drone if it meant saving their life. But ordinary citizens may not feel incredibly comfortable flying aboard an automated passenger drone with no visible human pilot. After all, many people have just begun wrapping their heads around the idea of trusting a self-driving robot car to chauffeur them around on the ground. Flying the friendly skies with no human captain in sight may require yet another leap of faith. Would you take it?

Resume: The first article talks about headless animals capable of doing many tasks, carrying tools or even injured soldiers. Those walking military robots were rejected at the beginning because of too much noise. But the U.S. Military found an interest on those machines. For now, it seams a bit too much extracted from an Hollywood movie, but those are actually prototype and many have been created for tests as destruction concrete walls, climbing ladders and drive human out of dangerous situations.

The second article speaks about drones which could carry humans. We all know that Amazon launched is own delivery drones showing up to your front door with your package. But here we are talking about a giant quadcopter developed by the chinese start up EHang that could flight injured soldiers out of the battlefield to an hospital. But, there also is a trust issue. An injured person will probably not hesitate to jump in if he's life depend of it but a civilian may not be as confident in a automated flying drone with visible pilot. Same problem for the self driving cars. We all know that the unknown fears us but it is a matter of time.

For myself, I really like those two ideas even though I have nothing in common with the military thing for now. We see this in war video games were all kinds of drones and robots fight with solldiers and I think this a pretty good idea even if I do not encourage war.