The robot rodeo test at Fort Hood
The Army called it a “Robotics Rodeo,” but no urban cowboys rode a gyrating mechanical bull like the one at Gilley's, the legendary Houston-area honky-tonk.There is more.The idea was to save soldiers' lives by putting robotic tactical vehicles on the point in war, but its promise also brings pitfalls, as GIs saw while testing TerraMax, an automated truck system.
Hands off the steering wheel, Noah Zych sat in the driver's seat of a heavy truck as it rolled down an oval road dotted by obstacles, one an Iraq-like village. It quickly picked up speed, reaching 40 mph, before slowing while navigating a bend in the road.
A computer under the seat ran the truck though a seemingly flawless demonstration. But Fort Hood's chief, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, uttered an expletive after a soldier said in a debriefing later that day that TerraMax, made by Oskosh Corp., has slowed down after confusing dust clouds for obstacles.
“We've all fought and we've lost friends on places where unmanned ground vehicles could have done the task equally well, and I regret that like you'll never know,” Lynch, who lost 153 GIs while leading the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, told the men. “If I had done a better job fielding unmanned ground vehicles, those young people would still be alive.”
An Army first, the Robotics Rodeo drew dozens of firms here last week. Robots someday may be used for everything from replacing soldiers in vulnerable convoys to leading the way into firefights.
They could become Army cyborg scouts, making first contact with the enemy, or simply acting as the service's eyes and ears by providing a “persistent stare” — spending hours or days scouring for insurgents who plant bombs on busy roads and in markets.
Robotics is a passion for Lynch. He studied the subject while earning a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and has said urgency is needed in developing robot trucks.
Roadside bombs, called improvised explosive devices, are the No. 1 killer of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. Most robotic devices now in the war zone work to find IEDs before they kill GIs.
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Robotics will be important to the military in the coming years. It is somewhat ironic that the air robots, i.e. UAVs, are ahead of the ground robots at this point. Gen. Lynch has been an innovative leader in the Army. I am glad to see he is pushing this program. He was also a great resource for MNFI in providing details about the war at a time when most reporters were doing their work from Baghdad hotels.
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