March of the killer robots

Killing machine: one of America’s unmanned Reaper hunter-killer aircraft Photo: PHILIP COBURN

The development of mechanical soldiers and remote-controlled tanks and planes is changing war for ever – but the moral consequences have often been overlooked.

Telegraph | Jun 15, 2009

By Noel Sharkey

It’s the most realistic shoot-’em-up game ever. The player has a choice of two planes: a Predator with two Hellfire missiles, or a Reaper with 14. The action takes place in the Middle East, where you can attack villages and kill the inhabitants with impunity. But don’t bother looking for it in the shops: to play this deadly game, you’ll have to travel to Creech Air Force base in the Nevada desert. That’s because the planes are real, and so are the casualties.

The first time a Predator made a kill was in Yemen, in 2002, when the CIA used it to destroy a vehicle carrying an al-Qaeda leader and five of his associates. The fleet now stands at around 200 craft, which have flown more than 400,000 combat hours. The company that makes them, General Atomics, can’t keep up with the demand. The bigger, badder version – the Reaper hunter-killer – is also flying off the shelves. There are now around 30 in active service, with the first kill taking place in the mountains of Afghanistan in October 2007.

In every field of warfare, mechanical soldiers are fighting alongside – or instead of – human beings. Apart from unmanned combat air vehicles such as Predators, the skies above Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are filled with drones carrying out surveillance operations. On the ground are between 6,000 and 12,000 robots, up from a mere 150 in 2004. Their role is mostly to protect our soldiers by disrupting improvised explosive devices, or to carry out surveillance of dangerous places such as caves and buildings.

Our image of such robots owes a great deal to films – most notably The Terminator or Transformers, both of which have sequels out this month. But the actual models being used are more like miniature tanks, similar to the contraptions seen on the television series Robot Wars. The most popular is the PackBot made by the US company iRobot, which is normally used for bomb disposal. As the company started out making robotic vacuum cleaners known as Roombas, the 18kg PackBot is sometimes jokingly referred to as the “Roomba of doom” or “Doomba” – much to the displeasure of the firm’s management, who would clearly hope to keep the two brands separate.

Recently, iRobot joined forces with Taser International to mount the allegedly non-lethal weapons on the “bots”. But that pales in comparison with the ordnance that comes with the Talon, a larger device made by Foster-Miller, a US subsidiary of the British firm QinetiQ. It comes with chemical, gas, temperature and radiation sensors and can be mounted with a choice of grenade launcher, machine gun, incendiary weapon or 50-calibre rifle. Its bigger brother, the MAARS robot, ups the stakes with a tanklike turret.

Despite planned cutbacks in spending on conventional weapons, the Obama administration is increasing its budget for robotics: in 2010, the US Air Force will be given $2.13 billion for unmanned technology, including $489.24 million to procure 24 heavily armed Reapers. The US Army plans to spend $2.13 billion on unmanned vehicle technology, including 36 more Predators, while the Navy and Marine Corps will spend $1.05 billion, part of which will go on armed MQ-8B helicopters.

Of course, when the military describes such systems as “unmanned”, it is stretching the truth very slightly. At the moment, all the armed robots in the Middle East are remote-controlled by humans – there is a “man in the loop” to control them and to decide when and whether to apply lethal force.

But that makes very little difference to villagers in Waziristan, where there have been repeated Predator strikes since 2006, many of them controlled from Creech Air Force Base, thousands of miles away. According to reports coming out of Pakistan, these have killed 14 al-Qaeda leaders and more than 600 civilians.

Such widespread collateral damage suggests that the human remote-controllers are not doing a very good job of restraining their robotic servants. In fact, the role of the “man in the loop” is becoming vanishingly small, and will disappear. “Our decision power [as controllers] is really only to give a veto,” argues Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. “And, if we are honest with ourselves, it is a veto power we are often unable or unwilling to exercise because we only have a half-second to react.”

As Dyke Weatherington, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Task Force, points out: “There’s really no way that a system that is remotely controlled can effectively operate in an offensive or defensive air combat environment. The requirement of that is a fully autonomous system.”

Sure enough, plans are well under way to develop robots that can locate and destroy targets without human intervention. There are already a number of autonomous ground vehicles, such as the seven-ton “Crusher” developed by DARPA, the US military’s research agency. BAE Systems, a British defence contractor, recently reported that it had “completed a flying trial which, for the first time, demonstrated the co-ordinated control of multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles autonomously completing a series of tasks”. The Israelis are already fielding autonomous radar-killer drones known as Harpy and Harop, and the South Koreans use lethal autonomous systems to defend their border with the North.

Many in the military are enthusiastic about such developments. “They don’t get hungry. They’re not afraid. They don’t forget their orders,” says Dr Gordon Johnson, of the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command. “Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.”

Dr Johnson insists that “there are no legal prohibitions against robots making life-and-death decisions”, adding: “The US military will have these kinds of robots. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”

The problem, however, is that no autonomous robots or artificial intelligence systems have the necessary capabilities to discriminate between combatants and innocents. Compared with the robots in the Terminator films, they suffer from artificial stupidity. Allowing them to make decisions about who to kill falls foul of the fundamental ethical precepts of the laws of war set up to protect civilians, the sick and wounded, the mentally ill and captives. We are already overreaching the technology and stretching the laws of war.

“Unless we end war, end capitalism and end science, the use of robots will only grow,” says Peter Singer. “We are building and using machines with more and more autonomy because they are viewed by militaries as useful for war, and viewed by companies as profitable business.” Spending on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is expected to exceed tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years, and more than 40 countries – including Russia and China – now have their own programmes.

Amid this robotic arms race, there is a sliver of hope. Professor Ron Arkin, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that humans do not have the time to make rational ethical decisions in the modern battlefield. “There appears to be little alternative,” he says, “to the use of more dispassionate autonomous decision-making machinery.” He has funding from the US Army for research on how to programme ethical rules into robots to stop them causing excessive collateral damage. But this does not get around the problem of how to discriminate between innocents and combatants – and Arkin admits that the technology to fully support his system may not be available for 25 years.

The problem is that it is not just a matter of developing adequate sensors. In complex wars, complex human reasoning is often needed to decide when it is appropriate to kill. Robots do not feel anger or seek revenge – but they also don’t have sympathy, empathy, remorse or shame. Nor can they be held accountable for their actions. In subcontracting our wars to our robotic creations, we are abdicating moral responsibility, too.

Soldiers bonding with their robot comrades

Concept art shows a human resistance fighter facing off against a Hydrobot from the movie “Terminator Salvation.” Warner Bros.

The United States military sees robots as tireless warriors capable of striking fear into enemies, and is not shy about finding inspiration from “Terminator.”

Fox News | May 21, 2009

Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren

By Jeremy Hsu

Human warriors have long spoken of the bonds forged in combat and of becoming a “band of brothers.” The fact that some of those fellow soldiers are made of metal has not discouraged human feelings toward them.

Thousands of robots now fight with humans on modern battlefields that resemble scenes from science fiction movies such as “Terminator Salvation.” But the real world poses a more complex situation than humans versus robots, and has added new twists to the psychology of war.

“One of the psychologically interesting things is that these systems aren’t designed to promote intimacy, and yet we’re seeing these bonds being built with them,” said Peter Singer, a leading defense analyst at the Brookings Institution and author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” (Penguin Press HC, 2009).

Singer highlights many accounts of human soldiers feeling strong affection for their robots — especially on the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams where Packbots and Talon robots undertake the risk of disabling improvised explosives planted by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One EOD soldier brought in a robot for repairs with tears in his eyes and asked the repair shop if it could put “Scooby-Doo” back together. Despite being assured that he would get a new robot, the soldier remained inconsolable. He only wanted Scooby-Doo.

Robot in arms

The United States military sees robots as tireless warriors capable of striking fear into enemies, and is not shy about finding inspiration from “Terminator.”

“One scientist said he was trying to build the Hunter-Killer drone from ‘Terminator,’” Singer told LiveScience.

Terror aside, Singer and other experts point out how battlefield robots have also proved capable of inspiring love from their human comrades, such as the EOD soldier.

“It sounds silly, but you have to remember that he’s been through the most psychologically searing experience: battle,” Singer said. “That machine has saved him time and time again.”

Sometimes such bonds led soldiers to risk their lives for their robots, in a strange inverse of the idea that robots would spare human lives. Singer recounted another EOD soldier who ran 164 feet under machine gun fire to retrieve a robot that had been knocked out of action. And several teams have given their robots promotions, Purple Heart awards for being wounded in combat, and even a military funeral.

This attachment to robots stems in part from the human brain’s mirror-neuron system, which fires up whenever watching the movement of someone or something, Singer noted. The system helps form the foundation for empathy and understanding the mindset of another being, but can also lead people to project personalities and emotions onto objects.

Eyes in the sky

The growing numbers of battlefield robots have also changed the human relationship to war itself, especially as the United States has already fielded more than 12,000 ground robots and more than 7,000 flying drones in regions such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Armed drones in particular have proved effective in loitering over target areas for hours until targets come in sight, and then firing their missiles at suspected insurgents — all while being controlled by human operators sitting thousands of miles away in Nevada.

The drone operator’s war often looks surreal and disconnected from reality, given that they coordinate strikes via online chat and view their targets as small infrared figures moving around. Many media stories have referenced the example of a 19-year-old drone operator, who honed his skills from playing Xbox to become a top operator and eventually an instructor.

That has led some members of the U.S. military to look down on drone operators for not sharing the risks of ground forces or even pilots, as Singer discovered. One Special Operations officer remained enraged years later by a “bogus weather call” that prevented a drone from supporting his unit in Afghanistan. His contempt for the Predator operators was such that he expressed more respect for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – the insurgent mastermind who was behind hundreds of bombings and killings.

Still, Singer said that the operators “know lives are at stake,” and take pride in the role that they play in helping demoralize the enemy. And the U.S. military has clearly invested much of its future in the capabilities of robots.

When Singer asked one U.S. Air Force officer about how he envisioned the psychological impact of the drones on the enemy, the officer compared the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants to the human resistance fighters in the “Terminator” movies — hiding in their bunkers and caves from the technological onslaught.

How to fight a robot

The ever-watchful eyes in the sky have clearly unnerved human fighters to some extent. The New York Times reported in March that some Pakistani locals had given up drinking Lipton tea for fear of the teabags acting as homing beacons for drones. And the Los Angeles Times noted that a six-month campaign of Predator strikes has sown distrust within Al Qaeda, so that the militants have begun violently purging their own ranks.

However, Singer and others point out that the use of robots may also make the United States look weak, even cowardly to cultures in the Middle East and elsewhere. People of those cultures see a powerful nation that wages distant war with incredible technologies but refuses to risk its own troops, and they grow defiant.

“One side thinks that its very duty is to do everything to bring its soldiers home to its families,” Singer noted. “For the other side, the very act of dying is almost the main goal.”

Singer spoke with two insurgents for his book, and they acknowledged the technological prowess of U.S. robots and drones. But they also said they were not at all intimidated — one with an engineering background expressed eagerness to get his hands on his own robot.

Previous attempts to rely solely on technological shock and awe through “Gunboat Diplomacy” and airpower have not proven incredibly successful in the long run, said Douglas Peifer, a researcher at the Air War College of Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

“No doubt robots and unmanned combat systems will discourage our opponents and minimize our losses,” Peifer said in an article for Small Wars Journal. “But betting that the latest iteration of revolutionary technology will magically compel a resolute enemy to come to terms is unwise.”

On the modern battlefield, Iraqi insurgents have adapted by targeting EOD robots and capturing robots for their own use. U.S. soldiers have even encountered crude but innovative insurgent bots, Singer explained in his book — such as a remote-controlled skateboard rigged with explosives that scooted along as though pushed by the wind.

Guess who has the terminators

“We don’t have to be in the year 2018 with Skynet and the terminators all around us, for those huge policy and military dilemmas to take form,” Singer said. “They’re already here.”

As the U.S. military and others rapidly deploy a growing swarm of robots on sea, land and air, some experts cited in “Wired for War” could not help but make another “Terminator” comparison. They warned that the United States runs the risk of looking like the evil empire from Star Wars, if not the heartless Skynet and its army of relentless terminator robots.

Still, robot researchers and the military continue to embrace ideas born from “Terminator” and science fiction. Singer attended one presentation on the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) — a long-range robot that refuels itself on “grass, broken wood, furniture, dead bodies,” according to a list reeled off by one scientist.

“I really hope Skynet doesn’t learn about that kind of system,” Singer said.

Lethal robot warriors to be programmed for “ethical killing”

Lethal military robots are currently deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ground-based robots like QinetiQ’s MAARS robot (shown here), are armed with weapons to shoot insurgents, appendages to disarm bombs, and surveillance equipment to search buildings. A Georgia Tech computer science professor is developing a package of software and hardware that tells robots when and what to fire.

Robot warriors will get a guide to ethics

When and what to fire will be part of hardware and software ‘package’

MSNBC | May 18, 2009

By Eric Bland

Smart missiles, rolling robots, and flying drones currently controlled by humans, are being used on the battlefield more every day. But what happens when humans are taken out of the loop, and robots are left to make decisions, like who to kill or what to bomb, on their own?

Ronald Arkin, a professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, is in the first stages of developing an “ethical governor,” a package of software and hardware that tells robots when and what to fire. His book on the subject, “Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots,” comes out this month.

He argues not only can robots be programmed to behave more ethically on the battlefield, they may actually be able to respond better than human soldiers.

“Ultimately these systems could have more information to make wiser decisions than a human could make,” said Arkin. “Some robots are already stronger, faster and smarter than humans. We want to do better than people, to ultimately save more lives.”

Lethal military robots are currently deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ground-based robots like iRobot’s SWORDS or QinetiQ’s MAARS robots, are armed with weapons to shoot insurgents, appendages to disarm bombs, and surveillance equipment to search buildings. Flying drones can fire at insurgents on the ground. Patriot missile batteries can detect incoming missiles and send up other missiles to intercept and destroy them.

No matter where the robots are deployed however, there is always a human involved in the decision-making, directing where a robot should fly and what munitions the robot should use if it encounters resistance.

Humans aren’t expected to be removed any time soon. Arkin’s ethical governor is designed for a more traditional war where civilians have evacuated the war zone and anyone pointing a weapon at U.S. troops can be considered a target.

Arkin’s challenge is to translate the 150-plus years of codified, written military law into terms that robots can understand and interpret themselves. In many ways, creating an independent war robot is easier than many other types of artificial intelligence because the laws of war have existed for over 150 years and are clearly stated in numerous treaties.

“We tell soldiers what is right and wrong,” said Arkin. “We don’t allow soldiers to develop ethics on their own.”

One possible scenario for Arkin’s ethical governor is an enemy sniper posted in building next to an important cultural setting, like a mosque or cemetery. A wheeled military robot emerges from cover and the sniper fires on it. The robot finds the sniper and has a choice; does it use a grenade launcher or its own sniper rifle to bring down the fighter?

Using geographical data on the surrounding buildings, the robot would decide to use the sniper rifle to minimize any potential damage to the surrounding buildings.

For a human safely removed from combat, the choice of a rifle seems obvious. But a soldier under fire might take extreme action, possibly blowing up the building and damaging the nearby building.

“Robots don’t have an inherent right to self-defense and don’t get scared,” said Arkin. “The robots can take greater risk and respond more appropriately.”

Fear might influence human decision-making, but math rules for robots. Simplified, various actions can be classified as ethical or unethical, and assigned a certain value. Starting with a lethal action and subtracting the various ethical responses to the situation equals an unethical response. Other similar equations governor the various possible actions.

The difficult thing is to determine what types of actions go into those equations, and for that humans will be necessary, and ultimately responsible for.

Robots, freed of human masters and capable of lethality “are going to happen,” said Arkin. “It’s just a question of how much autonomy will be put on them and how fast that happens.”

Giving robots specific rules and equations will work in an ideal, civilian-free war, but critics point out such a thing is virtually impossible to find on today’s battlefield.

“I challenge you to find a war with no civilians,” said Colin Allen, a professor at Indiana University who also coauthored a book on the ethics of military robots.

An approach like Arkin’s is easier to program and will appear sooner, but a bottom-up approach, where the robot learns the rules of war itself and makes its own judgment is a far better scenario, according to Allen.

The problem with a bottom-up approach is the the technology doesn’t yet exist, and likely won’t for another 50 years, says Allen.

Whenever autonomous robots are deployed, humans will still be in the loop, at least legally. If a robot does do something ethically wrong, despite its programming, the software engineer or the builder of the robot will likely be held accountable, says Michael Anderson at Franklin and Marshall University.

Robot controlled by human thought alone

Honda brain activity measuring device controlling ASIMO robot by human thought alone. (Photo: Business Wire)

Honda, ATR and Shimadzu Jointly Develop Brain-Machine Interface Technology Enabling Control of a Robot by Human Thought Alone

Business Wire | Mar 30, 2009

TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Honda Research Institute Japan Co., Ltd. (HRI-JP), a subsidiary of Honda R&D Co., Ltd., Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) and Shimadzu Corporation have collaboratively developed the world’s first Brain Machine Interface (BMI) technology that uses electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) along with newly developed information extraction technology to enable control of a robot by human thought alone. It does not require any physical movement such as pressing buttons. This technology will be further developed for the application to human-friendly products in the future by integrating it with intelligent technologies and/or robotic technologies.

During the human thought process, slight electrical current and blood flow change occur in the brain. The most important factor in the development of the BMI technology is the accuracy of measuring and analyzing these changes. The newly developed BMI technology uses EEG, which measures changes in electrical potential on the scalp, and NIRS, which measures changes in cerebral blood flow, with a newly developed information extraction technology which enables statistical processing of the complex information from these two types of sensors. As a result, it became possible to distinguish brain activities with high precision without any physical motion, but just human thought alone.

The BMI technology announced by HRI-JP and ATR in 2006 used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to measure brain activities. The large size and powerful magnetic field generated by the fMRI scanner limited the locations and conditions where it can be used. As the newly developed measuring device uses EEG and NIRS sensors, it can be transported to and used in various locations.

Test procedures for experiments with the new BMI

First, EEG and NIRS sensors are placed on the head of the user. Then, one of four pre-determined body part options is provided to the user. The user imagines moving that body part without making any physical movement. Changes in both brain waves and cerebral blood flow triggered by the brain activity are measured simultaneously. The data obtained are analyzed on a real-time basis to distinguish what the user imagined. Upon receiving the result, Honda’s ASIMO humanoid robot makes corresponding movements such as raising its arm or leg. The world’s highest level accuracy rate of more than 90% was achieved in the tests.

Since 2005, Honda and ATR have been conducting research and development of BMI technology exploring the potential of a new interface which connects people and machines. Honda is looking into the possibility of applying this technology to a people-friendly human interface through integration with other technologies such as artificial intelligence technologies and/or robotics technologies. In May 2006, Honda and ATR successfully developed a BMI technology which utilizes a fMRI scanner and achieved the first success in the world to control a robot hand by decoding brain activities without electrode array implants or special training of the user.

About BMI

While conventional machine-interface uses devices such as switches which need to be operated by a user’s hands or feet, BMI uses brain activity data measured by various devices and enables non-contact control of the machines (such as robots). Invasive BMI, which is widely studied by U.S. and European researchers, requires the surgical implant of electrode arrays, whereas non-invasive BMI uses sensors touching the user’s scalp.

Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own

Sleepwalking into a brave new world where robots decide who, where and when to kill

McClatchy Newspapers | Mar 25, 2009

By Robert S. Boyd

WASHINGTON — The unmanned bombers that frequently cause unintended civilian casualties in Pakistan are a step toward an even more lethal generation of robotic hunters-killers that operate with limited, if any, human control.

The Defense Department is financing studies of autonomous, or self-governing, armed robots that could find and destroy targets on their own. On-board computer programs, not flesh-and-blood people, would decide whether to fire their weapons.

“The trend is clear: Warfare will continue and autonomous robots will ultimately be deployed in its conduct,” Ronald Arkin, a robotics expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, wrote in a study commissioned by the Army.

“The pressure of an increasing battlefield tempo is forcing autonomy further and further toward the point of robots making that final, lethal decision,” he predicted. “The time available to make the decision to shoot or not to shoot is becoming too short for remote humans to make intelligent informed decisions.”

Autonomous armed robotic systems probably will be operating by 2020, according to John Pike, an expert on defense and intelligence matters and the director of the security Web site GlobalSecurity.org in Washington.

This prospect alarms experts, who fear that machines will be unable to distinguish between legitimate targets and civilians in a war zone.

“We are sleepwalking into a brave new world where robots decide who, where and when to kill,” said Noel Sharkey, an expert on robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield, England.

Human operators thousands of miles away in Nevada, using satellite communications, control the current generation of missile-firing robotic aircraft, known as Predators and Reapers. Armed ground robots, such as the Army’s Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System, also require a human decision-maker before they shoot.

As of now, about 5,000 lethal and nonlethal robots are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides targeting Taliban and al Qaida leaders, they perform surveillance, disarm roadside bombs, ferry supplies and carry out other military tasks. So far, none of these machines is autonomous; all are under human control.

The Pentagon’s plans for its Future Combat System envision increasing levels of independence for its robots.

“Fully autonomous engagement without human intervention should also be considered, under user-defined conditions,” said a 2007 Army request for proposals to design future robots.

For example, the Pentagon says that air-to-air combat may happen too fast to allow a remote controller to fire an unmanned aircraft’s weapons.

“There is really no way that a system that is remotely controlled can effectively operate in an offensive or defensive air-combat environment,” Dyke Weatherington, the deputy director of the Pentagon’s unmanned aerial systems task force, told a news conference on Dec. 18, 2007. “The requirement for that is a fully autonomous system,” he said. “That will take many years to get to.”

Many Navy warships carry the autonomous, rapid-fire Phalanx system, which is designed to shoot down enemy missiles or aircraft that have penetrated outer defenses without waiting for a human decision-maker.

At Georgia Tech, Arkin is finishing a three-year Army contract to find ways to ensure that robots are used in appropriate ways. His idea is an “ethical governor” computer system that would require robots to obey the internationally recognized laws of war and the U.S. military’s rules of engagement.

“Robots must be constrained to adhere to the same laws as humans or they should not be permitted on the battlefield,” Arkin wrote.

For example, a robot’s computer “brain” would block it from aiming a missile at a hospital, church, cemetery or cultural landmark, even if enemy forces were clustered nearby. The presence of women or children also would spark a robotic no-no.

Arkin contends that a properly designed robot could behave with greater restraint than human soldiers in the heat of battle and cause fewer casualties.

“Robots can be built that do not exhibit fear, anger, frustration or revenge, and that ultimately behave in a more humane manner than even human beings in these harsh circumstances,” he wrote.

Sharkey, the British critic of autonomous armed robots, said that Arkin’s ethical governor was “a good idea in principle. Unfortunately, it’s doomed to failure at present because no robots or AI (artificial intelligence) systems could discriminate between a combatant and an innocent. That sensing ability just does not exist.”

Selmer Bringsjord, an artificial intelligence expert at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., is worried, too.

“I’m concerned. The stakes are very high,” Bringsjord said. “If we give robots the power to do nasty things, we have to use logic to teach them not to do unethical things. If we can’t figure this out, we shouldn’t build any of these robots.”

New army of surveillance robots unleashed on Afghanistan

Flying robots to spy on Taliban bombmakers

A new army of robots will be introduced that could save the lives of many British soldiers, defence chiefs have said.

Telegraph | Mar 23, 2009

By Thomas Harding

With the bomb threat in Afghanistan increasing accounting for two-thirds of casualties the Ministry of Defence is hurriedly moving into the robotic market to help combat the threat.

Lt Gen Andrew Figgures, the MoD’s head of procurement told The Daily Telegraph that the new devices were “undoubtedly saving lives”.

“These vehicles will improve our operational success and reduce our casualties.” He added that the vehicle would mean the military had to “change our conventional way of thinking”.

Related

Brit forces get hover-stare ducted-fan droid

By next year it is hoped that instead of laboriously getting out on foot with mine detectors to examine potential roadside bombs at vulnerable points a host of tiny robots will take over the dangerous task.

With its “hover and stare” capability the small T-Hawk drone can go just inches above the ground or hundreds of feet up to look out for enemy hiding in ambush or a disused car or disturbed earth where a bomb might have been planted.

The micro air vehicle, that uses a fan duct engine to fly at 46mph, can be quickly launched from a backpack or out of the back of a vehicle allowing soldiers to look over a hill or into an approaching village.

It has already saved a number of American lives in Afghanistan where 25 are in service and the MoD could put them into service soon after buying six for evaluation each for the cost of a luxury car.

It offers a “hover and stare capability”, enabling close reconnaissance and scrutiny of potential threats without exposing the soldier operator to unnecessary risk.

The device named after the Tarantula Hawk that swoops down on the poisonous spiders in the desert, has the ability to take off and land vertically and can fly more than 50 minutes autonomously but if the operator sees something suspicious it can zoom in for greater investigation. It weighs less than 20lbs and comes equipped with day and infra-red cameras that relay information back to foot soldiers using a portable hand-held terminal.

The lives of courageous bomb-disposal experts are likely to become safer if the MoD adopt the Shadow Robot Company’s Dexterous Hand that is regarded as the most advanced robot hand in the world almost exactly duplicating the movement of human digits.

Using a special glove the operator can get the hand to move precisely like that of a human to wield a small screwdriver or cut wires.

A gadget that could take off as a major high street toy has become a desired item for American troops operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Dragonrunner is a small, highly robust four-wheeled buggy that can be mounted with an array of cameras and gadgets. But the” selling point of the “throwbot” is its agility. Soldiers can chuck it through windows and the machine will zip around a room identifying enemy and bombs before bursting out of the back of a house smashing windows as it goes. It has also been thrown out of the back of vehicles by troops driving through hostile towns where it can hide and spy on the population while soldiers can view the scene on a screen from a safe distance.

It also has the ability to place a disrupter device to detonate a bomb.

The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine

BRAIN POWER: By about 2020 a $1,000 computer will at least match the processing power of the human brain. By 2029 the software for intelligence will have largely been mastered. © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ ANDREY VOLODIN

The accelerating pace of technological progress means that our intelligent creations will soon eclipse us–and that their creations will eventually eclipse them

Scientific American | Mar 23, 2009

By Ray Kurzweil

Sometime early in this century the intelligence of machines will exceed that of humans. Within a quarter of a century, machines will exhibit the full range of human intellect, emotions and skills, ranging from musical and other creative aptitudes to physical movement. They will claim to have feelings and, unlike today’s virtual personalities, will be very convincing when they tell us so. By around 2020 a $1,000 computer will at least match the processing power of the human brain. By 2029 the software for intelligence will have been largely mastered, and the average personal computer will be equivalent to 1,000 brains.

Once computers achieve a level of intelligence comparable to that of humans, they will necessarily soar past it. For example, if I learn French, I can’t readily download that learning to you. The reason is that for us, learning involves successions of stunningly complex patterns of interconnections among brain cells (neurons) and among the concentrations of biochemicals known as neurotransmitters that enable impulses to travel from neuron to neuron. We have no way of quickly downloading these patterns. But quick downloading will allow our nonbiological creations to share immediately what they learn with billions of other machines. Ultimately, nonbiological entities will master not only the sum total of their own knowledge but all of ours as well.

Related

Re-Engineering Our Motivations With Brain Implants

As this happens, there will no longer be a clear distinction between human and machine. We are already putting computers—neural implants—directly into people’s brains to counteract Par kinson’s disease and tremors from multiple scle rosis. We have cochlear implants that restore hear ing. A retinal implant is being de veloped in the U.S. that is intended to provide

at least some visual perception for some blind individuals, basically by replacing certain visual-processing circuits of the brain. A team of scientists at Emory University implanted a chip in the brain of a paralyzed stroke victim that allowed him to use his brainpower to move a cursor across a computer screen.

In the 2020s neural implants will improve our sensory experiences, memory and thinking. By 2030, instead of just phoning a friend, you will be able to meet in, say, a virtual Mozam bican game preserve that will seem compellingly real. You will be able to have any type of ex perience—business, social, sexual—with anyone, real or simulated, regardless of physical proximity.

Full Story

‘Robofish’ monitor pollution

This research is part of the ‘SHOAL’ project, which involves six partners from four European countries and has been backed by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme Theme 3-ICT.

The Engineer Online | Mar 17, 2009

Researchers at Essex University have been awarded a share of a £2.5m grant to develop robotic fish that can function independently and as part of a team to analyse and monitor pollution in a port.

Prof Huosheng Hu from the university’s School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering will lead the Essex robotics team, joined by Dr John Gan and Dr Dongbing Gu.

The fish will be equipped with chemical sensors to find pollutants in the water, so can analyse contaminants in ports and produce a real-time 3D map of the port, showing what concentrations of pollutants are present and where.

They will be designed to adapt quickly to changes in the port environment, with advanced swarm-intelligence techniques used to control and co-ordinate them.

Hu said: ‘We will develop a team of robotic fish to search and analyse chemicals on the surface of the water such as oil, as well as those dissolved in the water.’

The technology developed will enable a port authority to monitor pollution from ships, as well as other types of harmful contaminants and pollutants from underwater pipelines. In addition, the project should lead to important advances in robotics, chemical analysis, underwater communications and robot intelligence.

This research is part of the ‘SHOAL’ project, which involves six partners from four European countries and has been backed by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme Theme 3-ICT.

A robot so tiny it can alter DNA code

nyunews.com | Mar 3, 2009

by Max Behrman

Forget R2-D2 and C-3PO — NYU researchers have developed an entirely different and exciting kind of robot.

After years of research, a team of chemists from NYU and China’s Nanjing University has created a two-armed nanorobot with the ability to alter and exchange pieces of genetic code. The catch? Their device has to be small enough to work on a molecular scale.

Built from DNA, the new nanorobot measures approximately 150 x 50 x 8 nanometers. And that’s tiny: a nanometer is a billionth of a meter.

With this device, size really does matter; while one array of molecules that the device studies measures out to be 120 x 50 square nanometers, Hongzhou Gu, a fifth-year chemistry graduate student, said that one of the researchers’ goals is to create larger arrays accessible to the device.

“If we can get the array bigger,” Gu said, “that means more arms on the array and more information we can store.”

Gu said technology tends to follow a top-down method, meaning products continuously get smaller and smaller. However, their group utilizes a bottom-up method, attempting to make their arrays larger.

According to Ned Seeman, an NYU chemistry professor involved in the research, nanotechnology such as this provides “the capability of putting what you want where you want it when you want it there, and all on the nanometer scale.”

That manipulation of molecules therefore facilitates the conception of new DNA structures, allowing for the manufacturing of never-before-seen synthetic materials.

Computer processors and circuitry can also benefit from improvements in nanotechnology. Nanomachines inside computers could allow for more binary states, allowing for double the current computing speed.

The new device’s arms, which resemble two holes with a space between them, reside within an origami-like rectangular array. The arms, called cassettes, store different pieces of information; while DNA has previously filled that niche, other species such as proteins and chemical components could theoretically be placed in the arms.

Hao Yan, one researcher who worked in the NYU lab, said using the arms in a “controllable fashion” is a breakthrough.

“This is an exciting step toward implementing molecular assembly lines that could be used to control chemical synthesis, to activate protein-protein interaction, or to attenuate signal transductions,” Yan said.

Japanese catwalk robot unveiled

Cybernetic human HRP-4C. Photo: AFP / Yoshikazu Tsuno

Japanese researchers have invented a catwalk model robot that will soon strut her stuff at Tokyo fashion shows.

Telegraph | Mar 16, 2009

The female humanoid with slightly oversized eyes, a tiny nose and shoulder-length hair boasts 42 motion motors programmed to mimic the movements of flesh-and-blood fashion models.

“Hello everybody, I am cybernetic human HRP-4C,” said the futuristic fashionista, opening her media premiere at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology outside Tokyo.

The fashion-bot is 5ft 2 ins, the average height of young Japanese women, but weighs in at a waiflike 95 pounds (43 kilos) – including batteries.

Appearing before photographers and television crews, the seductive cyborg struck poses, flashed smiles and pouted sulkily according to commands transmitted wirelessly via bluetooth devices.

The performance fell short of flawless when she occasionally mixed up her facial expressions – a mistake the inventors put down to a case of the nerves as a hail of camera shutters confused her sound recognition sensors.

She has a slightly manga-inspired human face but a silver metallic body.

“If we had made the robot too similar to a real human, it would have been uncanny,” said one of the inventors, humanoid research leader Shuji Kajita. “We have deliberately leant toward an anime style.”

The institute said the robot “has been developed mainly for use in the entertainment industry” but is not for sale at the moment.

“We unveiled this to attract attention in society,” said Junji Ito, a senior official at the institute, who said he saw the HRP-4C as a stepping stone toward creating a humanoid industry.

“It’s important that people feel good about humanoids and want to work with them,” he said. “We shifted from a dry mechanical image to a very human image.”

The preview was a warm-up for the robot’s appearance at a Tokyo fashion show on March 23.

Like her real-life counterparts, HRP-4C commands a hefty price – the institute said developing and building her cost more than 200 million yen (£1.4 million).

Hirohisa Hirukawa, another researcher, said the institute hoped to commercialise the humanoid in future.