April 16, 2002
Machines Are Filling In for Troops
(Page 2 of 2)
Leading the Pentagon's remote-control warfare effort is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which operates out of Northern Virginia. The agency is working with Boeing to developed the X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle. The 30-foot-long windowless planes look like flying "W's" and will carry up to 12 250-pound bombs. In their initial deployments, as early as 2007, they will be used to attack radar and antiaircraft installations.
The Pentagon estimates that pilotless aircraft will cost less than half as much as piloted fighter jets like the F-15 or F-18, largely because they lack humans.
At first, the aircraft will be programmed to ask human controllers for permission to bomb targets. By 2010, the Pentagon envisions that the X-45 will independently attack targets in designated "kill boxes." Then, "If the aircraft sees a target that matches its memory, it hits it and tells the humans about it later," said Col. Michael Leahy of the Air Force, the program director.
The research agency and the Army are also working on the Future Combat System, a network of pilotless and piloted aircraft, transport vehicles and artillery pieces linked by high-speed communications.
The goal is to make the Army lighter and more nimble. Pilotless vehicles are expected to play a central role. Small hovering drones would peek over ridgetops, while unoccupied helicopters would watch troop movements. Closest to deployment is an all-terrain vehicle programmed to follow a soldier, hauling weapons and other gear.
The Pentagon already has the Hornet, essentially a land mine with a 100-yard reach. When it hears an approaching vehicle, it launches a device into the air that uses a heat sensor to direct a potent projectile down at the target.
Miniaturization is a keystone. Another goal is a "microair vehicle" less than nine inches long that can be carried in a backpack and, when launched, will send images from tiny heat sensors and cameras.
There are many technological and strategic hurdles. First, drones like the Predator require humans to do almost all their thinking. Having unoccupied vehicles accomplish the sophisticated maneuvers envisioned by Pentagon planners will require much greater autonomy, and more powerful artificial intelligence.
"Flying a Global Hawk from California to Australia, impressive as that is, is not as hard as driving an unmanned ground vehicle from here to the Capitol," said Dr. E. Allen Adler, director of the tactical technology office at the advanced projects agency, whose office is about five miles from Capitol Hill.
Second, the armed services have not begun adjusting their strategies to incorporate robotic vehicles. That will take years of study and training, experts and commanders say.
"The real challenge is to mix man and machines," said Colonel Leahy, program director for the pilotless fighter. "It will be a loose ballet at first. But eventually, the systems will be linked to each other, sharing information and deciding among them who has the best shot."
Third, Afghanistan did little to educate the Pentagon on how a more capable military rival might adjust to unmanned systems. The Taliban never learned how to shoot down a Predator, but Saddam Hussein's troops may have bagged at least two last year over southern Iraq. A sophisticated foe might disarm, destroy or confuse pilotless aircraft, rendering them useless or even turning them against American forces.
Finally, debate persists over just how much the military should rely on machines. Most military experts still say the human brain remains the most effective weapon.
"The onboard logic of unmanned combat aerial vehicles will not begin to approach the computational capacity of human brains, making them highly vulnerable to attacks by manned aircraft," Loren B. Thompson, chief operating officer for the Lexington Institute, which studies military issues, testified before the Senate last week.
In the end, said Dr. Rose, the electrical engineer assessing ground vehicles, the biggest challenge will be to design the technology so that to the fighter it becomes an invisible, almost subconscious, extension of the eyes, ears or trigger finger. That will take another generation, he said.
"Already, so many of these young soldiers grew up on video games and computers," he said. "They grew up trusting machines."
Eventually, he said, the new weapons and sensors will slide into the ethos of war just like the autopilot, which was once disparaged by aviators as "Iron Mike" but is now a standard part of airplane cockpits.
"But it'll still be 20 or 25 years up the road before we get to the point where you regard `Iron Mike' as a member of your squad as opposed to a nuisance," Dr. Rose said.
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