Driver-less vehicles and humanoid robots could soon be fighting alongside sailors and marines on the battleground.
At the world’s largest unmanned systems exhibition in Washington, the latest advances in robot technology were on display – with many featuring advanced war fighting capabilities.
Researchers, for example, are working with the Navy in designing shipboard autonomous firefighting robots.
“Every year, we’re going to do real demonstration testing on the real navy ships,” said Dennis Hong, director of the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech.
“So the first year, we’re going to make it walk in the ships. Year two, we’re going to do autonomous navigation, so the robot needs to figure out where it needs to be in the ship and try to figure out where the fire is. Year three, we’re going to demonstrate actual fire suppression technology as well,” Hong said.
Different types of firefighting techniques will be tested.
“Instead of drying a fire with a fire fighting hose, we have these grenade-like devices that when you pull a pin and drop it, it’s going to put out the fires,” Hong said. “Normally these robots are used for education or research; however we’re also using this technology to truly save lives.”
In other efforts to assist military personnel along the front-lines, an autonomous vehicle is in the works.
“The main purpose of this vehicle is to follow a squad when it does a patrol or any other mission and carry all of its logistical supplies, such as fuel, water and ammunition,” Capt. Warren Watts II, project officer at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. “It’s also a first aid vehicle and can transport a marine that has been injured from one location to another.”
It can also carry up to 1800 pounds of supplies and can travel about five miles per hour. Watts says this would lighten the burden on the marine and allow him to be a more agile war fighter.
“It’s a vehicle that is a surrogate,” Lawrence Schuette, director of innovation at the Office of Naval Research. “We hope someday [it] will be the vehicle that follows you hiking through the woods and through the desert, carrying all your gear for you. Imagine your own personal burrow or mule, that’s what we’re looking for.”