On the shopping list for combat forces include
-> A 15-inch robot with a video camera which can scuttles around on spying missions.
-> An almost silent drone aircraft with a four-foot wingspan which can transmit images of buildings below in IR and other modes.
-> A small armored vehicle on tank treads, about the size of a riding lawn mower, equipped with a machine gun and a grenade launcher. These units are known as the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, or Maars, and they are made by a company called QinetiQ North America. They can also be used as a nighttime sentry against infiltrators equipped with thermal imaging vision systems, since the battery-powered Maars unit remains invisible — it does not have the heat signature of a human being — and can “shoot” intruders with a laser tag gun without being detected itself.
-> A wagonlike Lockheed Martin device that can carry more than 1,000 pounds of gear and automatically follow a platoon at up to 17 miles per hour
-> For rougher terrain away from roads, engineers at Boston Dynamics are designing a walking robot to carry gear. Scheduled to be completed in 2012, it will carry 400 pounds as far as 20 miles, automatically following a soldier. The four-legged modules have an extraordinary sense of balance, can climb steep grades and even move on icy surfaces.
-> Mobile micro-robots — some no larger than model cars — that, operating in swarms, can map a potentially hostile area, accurately detecting a variety of threats.
-> A robotic submarine system that would intelligently detect underwater mines and protect ships in harbors.
The idea that robots on wheels or legs, with sensors and guns, might someday replace or supplement human soldiers is still a source of extreme controversy.
Proponents for the idea argue that these machines, not only protect soldiers, but also are never distracted, using an unblinking digital eye, or “persistent stare,” that automatically detects even the smallest motion. Nor do they ever panic under fire. One of the great arguments for armed robots is they can fire second. When a robot looks around a battlefield, he said, the remote technician who is seeing through its eyes can take time to assess a scene without firing in haste at an innocent person.
Opponents to this argue instead that civilians will be at greater risk, because of the challenges in distinguishing between fighters and innocent bystanders. Their argument is that that job is maddeningly difficult for human beings on the ground. It only becomes more difficult when a device is remotely operated. Because robots can stage attacks with little immediate risk to the people who operate them, opponents say that robot warriors lower the barriers to warfare, potentially making nations more trigger-happy and leading to a new technological arms race.
One well known automated system is the Predator aircraft, which find their targets with the aid of soldiers on the ground but are operated from the United States.
Because civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan have died as a result of collateral damage or mistaken identities, Predators have generated international opposition and prompted accusations of war crimes.
On the other hand, Predators have also saved thousands of lives which would have been lost on the ground.
Robot combatants are supported by a range of military strategists, officers and weapons designers — and even some human rights advocates. Weapons systems controlled by software will not act out of anger and malice and, in certain cases, can already make better decisions on the battlefield than humans.
Automation has proved vital in the wars America is fighting. In the air in Iraq and Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft with names like Predator, Reaper, Raven and Global Hawk have kept countless soldiers from flying sorties. Moreover, the military now routinely uses more than 6,000 tele-operated robots to search vehicles at checkpoints as well as to disarm one of the enemies’ most effective weapons: the I.E.D., or improvised explosive device.
The International Committee for Robot Arms Control has called for agreements to limit the development and use of tele-operated and autonomous weapons. They have called for standards which all autonomous systems have to adhere to, something similar to the three laws of Asimov
With fifty-six nations now developing robotic weapons of their own, it remain to be seen how the spirit and letter of these standards will be adhered to.
One thing remains for sure, that with this much resources being put in already, there is little chance that proponents , including major governments, will back out of developing such systems. However, the silver lining will be not the use of these systems for combat, but their adaption to civilian use.
