Armed ground robots

[netmouse]

remotely-operated ground vehicles (robots) with guns are being deployed in Iraq. How'd you like to face down a robot with an M-249 machine gun? Or a grenade launcher? The program calls them "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action systems" (SWORDS). So far they have not been in a firefight. Yet.

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

nod. the view from a video camera on location, assuming transmission is working, is going to be a lot more effective than a sniper's view from a safe standoff range. The video somewhat incorrectly represents their capabilities, suggesting robots will be able to penetrate buildings in leiu of soldiers - these robots cannot in fact kick in a door like the soldier in the video. Here in Michigan though, SWAT teams are using similar robots for assistance, including penetrating a door before entering premises, with a long lance-like module that can go on the front of the robot and has a camera on it to stick *through* a door for look-ahead.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Sending in a robot to look first is probably a LOT safer for occupants than kicking down the door and sending in the SWAT team; humans have a very strong Second Law implementation (without, of course, the restriction in Asimov's version).

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

oh, definitely. In general, robots *ought* to increase safety for everyone. But only if they work right, and if their operators understand the limitations of the infostream they will get from them. We're working on systems to help robots to collaborate to fill in information gaps they need to effectively complete ISR missions. The ability to check for gaps in one's own knowledge and make predictions that, when they fail to come through, indicate possible issues caused by the dynamics of the situation (things are not as we expected) is actually kind of tricky to manufacture. Operational robustness issues abound with remotely-controlled observation platforms, much less weaponized ones.