By MICHAEL PECK
A epitome variant of the Titan unmanned solid soil vehicle, or UGV, mounts a Javelin anti-tank missile every bit good every bit a .50-caliber machine gun. Estonian theatre Milrem Robotics makes the Titan—a course of educational activity of jack-of-all-trades mechanical mule. It’s a 1.6-ton, 8-foot-long tracked robot that stands 4 feet tall, travels at twelve miles per hour, as well as tin haul almost a ton of cargo. The Titan tin hold upwardly fitted amongst diverse modules for tasks such every bit IED clearance, casualty evacuation, as well as hauling cargo. The U.S. Army is forthwith evaluating it to haul the equipment of an infantry squad. Meanwhile, Norwegian defense strength theatre Kongsberg makes the Protector remote weapons station, typically mounted on vehicles to enable the crew to burn downward external weapons, such every bit turret-mounted machine guns, piece remaining within the protection of the vehicle. The U.S. armed forces already uses almost 15,000 of Kongsberg’s Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) systems on vehicles such every bit the Humvee as well as Stryker.
So why non set a remote-controlled weapon mountain on a remote-controlled robot? Hunting tanks isn’t the safest of pastimes, as well as so allow a robot exercise it piece the human operator stays safely out of the trace of fire.
Milrem as well as Kongsberg late conducted a live-fire demonstration close Kongsberg’s Norwegian headquarters. “Further testing as well as demonstrations, including Javelin firing, are planned for the close future,” according to a Milrem press release.
“The UGV has previously passed alive burn downward tests amongst FN Herstal’s deFNder Medium RWS, ST Kinetics ADDER, as well as ASELSAN’s SARP,” Milrem said. “An anti-tank organization amongst MBDA’s IMPACT (Integrated MMP Precision Attack Combat Turret) organization is too inward development.”
Milrem emphasizes that the robot weapons volition e'er convey a human inward the loop to authorize fire. “Equipping unmanned as well as robotic platforms amongst weapon systems enhances the security of warfighters as well as keeps them from harm’s way,” said Milrem CEO Kuldar Väärsi inward a society announcement. “These systems volition e'er convey a human operator controlling the weapon hence eliminating the trace of piece of job concern almost ‘killer robots.’”
But Väärsi’s assurance isn’t probable to soothe those who fearfulness that armed robots are a Pandora’s box that volition seize amongst teeth their makers, peculiarly every bit advanced AI enables machines to role to a greater extent than as well as to a greater extent than autonomously. State of Israel as well as Republic of Korea already convey armed robots patrolling their borders, piece Russian Federation has tested its Uran-9—a mini-tank armed amongst a 30-millimeter cannon—in Syria. Even the U.S.A. of America is getting into the armed robot game every bit it develops kits that tin transform a normal vehicle into an autonomous one. The U.S. Army already has an armed M113 armored personnel carrier as a remote-controlled examination vehicle.
That the Milrem/Kongsberg tank-hunter has a missile launcher instead of a pocket-size cannon, similar before robots, is but a thing of degree. What is interesting is the potential for swarms of pocket-size robot vehicles, armed amongst anti-tank weapons, to overwhelm a smaller number of manned tanks. There are nonetheless many hurdles before this becomes reality, such every bit situational awareness of the human operators, or what happens if the datalink betwixt robot as well as operator goes downward or is jammed (unless anti-tank robots larn autonomous, which raises its ain issues).
But inward robot tank versus human-controlled tank, the laws of economic science are on the side of the robots.
This article originally appeared on The National Interest
Buat lebih berguna, kongsi:
