There are more than 2,000 ground robots fighting alongside flesh-and-blood forces in Afghanistan, according to Lt. Col. Dave Thompson, the Marine Corps’ top robot-handler. If his figures are right, it means one in 50 U.S. troops in Afghanistan isn’t even a human being. And America’s swelling ranks of groundbot warriors are being used in new, unexpected, life-saving ways.
But there’s one small problem: however numerous, these rolling and crawling robots are still pretty stupid. And there’s not much hope they’ll get any smarter anytime soon.
Groundbots first made inroads among bomb-disposal units. The human bomb-techs could take cover and steer in a remote-controlled Talon or PackBot to disable a dangerous explosive device. But a third of the 1,400 fresh ground bots deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010 weren’t for EOD, Thompson pointed out during a presentation at a Washington, D.C. trade show “Robots are not just for explosive ordnance disposal teams anymore … They [ground troops] are using them in ways we never expected.”
For instance, at least one unit sent its four-wheeler-size M-160 — a tracked vehicle fitted with a “flail” for detonating buried mines — to scout ahead of a (manned) Husky bomb-detecting vehicle. Route-clearing for the route-clearer, if you will. Thompson played a video that “showed a powerful roadside bomb destroying the M160,” National Defense reported. “That would have otherwise been the Husky and its occupants,” the magazine helpfully pointed out
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