New Scientist Tech reports that the U.S. Army has contracted Vecna Technologies of College Park, Maryland to develop a robot specifically designed to extract wounded troops.
“The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) will be able to travel over bumpy terrain and squeeze through doorways while carrying an injured soldier in its arms,” the article states.
“The robot’s hydraulic arms are designed to pick up loads in a single smooth movement, to avoid causing pain to wounded soldiers. While the existing prototype slides its arms under its burden like a forklift, future versions will be fitted with maneuverable hands to gently scoop up casualties.
“The robot’s humanoid body and teddy bear-style head give it a friendly appearance. ‘A really important thing when you’re dealing with casualties is trying to maintain that human touch,’ says Gary Gilbert of the U.S. Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center in Frederick, Maryland, which provided the initial funding for BEAR’s development. Congress has since added $1.1 million.”
BEAR is expected to be ready for field testing in about five years.
(Gouge: CM)
– Ward
That is one surreal image. I’m still totally lost on the need or usefulness of this particular bot (and most of the others that are kicking around, too).
My immediate reaction is — don’t we have great, reliable meat based trooper-scoopers already on the field — soldiers?
Ok Ill bite…
Understanding that this technology is going to be ready for field-testing in five years (and ready for the field in 20…) I have a couple of questions.
1. Are BEARS going to be assigned at the fire team/squad/platoon/company/ battalion/brigade level? The further forward they are deployed, the more effective theyll be (choppering in a robot from an hour out to extract a wounded guy from a firefight seems counter productive.)
2. If assigned to tactical maneuver elements (teams, squads, platoons) are the BEARS going on patrol with their team, or are they going to be centrally located in some safe zone to await missions.
If patrolling, theyd better have one hell of a power supply, as well as the ability to follow verbal commands since tactical operations can tend to be long and not very conducive to pre-programming. From the sound of the write-up, the BEAR will be controlled remotely, which leads me to believe that it will be subject to the same signal degradation and interference that plagues our communications equipment in built up areas.
If they are going to be held in reserve, whats going to prevent them from getting taken out by the baddies enroute to the pickup? Are they going to be issued immunity idols? Are we going to develop robot security teams to escort the BEAR? Also, whats their ground speed? If its a couple of feet a second, navigating to the pickup point (and back) could take hours.
3. The actual mechanicals of the extraction seem a little far-fetched for me. Have you ever tried scooping up an unconscious person? Its not easy, and strength isnt nearly as important as finesse. From the write-up I gather the BEAR has no diagnostic or medical treating capabilities. It literally sounds like its a you call, Ill haul service, which begs the question, how will it evaluate a casualties injuries and determine the best way to transport the casualty. If the BEAR is supposed to wait for some sort of medical evaluation to be made before effecting extraction, wouldnt it be just as easy to send in some folk with pulses. As for the bear-like head comforting the wounded. Id feel awful worthless if I called for a DUSTOFF and all I got was this frikkin robot care bear.
For me, the bottom line is, all R&D issues aside, I just dont see this as a step up. Seems folk have fallen in love with unmanned and robotic substitutes for flesh and blood decision makers all in the name of force protection. On the one hand, I think using UAVs for route recon and intel collecting is brilliant — theyre quiet, they dont get tired, and they can stare at a whole lot of nothing for hours and hours without going insane. But having a robot to do extractions just to save some other soldier from having to do the job? If its so dangerous you have to send a robot, its probably pretty dangerous for the robot as well, not to mention the poor sod the robot is hauling. When the day comes that we have extracto-bots who move as fast as people, make decisions like people, and have the endurance of a real person (or better) then thats great, Ill take one on my team. Until then, give me flesh and blood.
Crap my back is broken, don’t pick me up! Ahhhhhhh!
it nut
Hold the phone people, $1.1 million for a retriever of the wounded, why not just make them tactical shooters instead, then you won’t have any wounded. Cheaper to build, less fuctionality, can draw fire for orbiting Predators, Global Hawks, and our guys can sit in the bunkers, eating HoHo’s and sucking down Pepsi’s. Sorry for being synical, but come on, it makes more since to remove the human target in the first place if your dead set on going this way. What would happen to the wounded troop rolling around in the arms of a bot? I’ll tell you, he would be a clay pidgeon on roller tracks. Jeeze where do you guys come from? “Damage to a Bot is more preferable” What do you think is going to happen to the poor soul it’s carrying. “A Nation cannot be Destroyed from without, until it is destroyed from within”
Another go at thoughtless military technology overkill.Mike has the best comment here,but that would violate the Geneva Convention, unless you kept a human in the loop.
Wouldn’t we potentially lose more lives trying to extract a ‘wounded’ BEAR carrying a litter?
Why would we develop a robot to carry out a single task when it could performa myriad of things our guys have to already, like carrying ammo, radios, water and other difficult but useful tasks?
Could it operate at 3,000 meters in knee deep snow? Or, ford a river or climb over dead trees through wood thickets?
J House and Eric make some good points to which I will add: Can it take a and/or many 7.62mm AP rounds to the head/torso and continue to function? RPG round? Shrapnel from mortars/arty? Land mine/IED/EFP resistant? Etc, etc, etc.
While I can appreciate the desire for this sort of thing, it seems expensive (uncomfortable fact: unlike UAV’s replacing pilots, the cost of replacing medics/infantry with robots is probably NOT effective or reasonable nor will be in any conceivable timeframe) and fraught with technical difficulties.
If we’re going to get creative and loopy,why stop at a robot with tracks? Why not strap a jet pack on it and have it fly itself back to the base autonomously.We could then drop one out of a helicopter, have it parachute in and get on with it.Or, deploy 10 BEARS for every soldier and confuse the enemy as to who is who.
Why not infuse the robot with enough intelligence to operate on the soldier in situ?
Or, program the robot to find and pick up the enemy and deliver them to our soldiers? Geez…
Now, I just have to set up my company’s shop near the Pentagon and cozy up to a Congressman for a fat R&D earmark…
There are 3 primary reasons the military uses robots–
First, it puts a machine, not a human in a dangerous environment to perform a task a human would have otherwise been required to do
Second, it allows them to use less resources to accomplish a given task
Third, it can provide a unique capability humans cannot do well (like a 24 hr loiter over a battlefield,or,operate a multisensor platform to feed humans data remotely)
Too often our present day political calculus that requires minimal US casualties to carry forward a policy makes us focus too much on the first criteria to solve a problem, thus, we have the BEAR.
One of the reasons our UAV’s have been so successful is their relative invulnerability and our air supremacy in Iraq/Afghanistan.
We may face a future environment where counter capabilities against robotic platforms will be greatly improved…it sould be unwise to believe this is an elixir for reducing battlefield casualties.
Demophilus:
There’s a group of people at Carnegie Mellon doing research concerned with “promoting positive interaction between robots and people”. One of the robots developed in this enterprise was the Nursebot, subsequently called “intelligent assistive device for the elderly”.
See http://peopleandrobots.org/ and follow the links.
You know, “bear” is a slang term for a fat gay man with a lot of body hair.
Do we *really* want these picking up our soldiers?
You know, just sayin’.
Gee Brian.…..that was really bright.
What did your post have to do with the topic at all?
If you wish to belittle people, why not try a different forum, like a mirror, perhaps.
No comments from the Peanut Gallery, DJ.