LEVEL 1 - 51 OF 115 STORIES
Copyright 1987 Bergen Record Corp.
The Record

March 9, 1987; MONDAY; ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A01

LENGTH: 944 words

HEADLINE: CREATING THE IDEAL SOLDIER;
U.S. SEEKS A PFC. ROBOT

SOURCE: Wire services

BYLINE: Brad Pokorny, Special from The Boston Globe

BODY:
	The Marines are looking for a few good machines.

	So are the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Specifically, the armed forces are looking for 
robots.
   
	"Machines don't get tired. They don't close their eyes. They don't hide under trees when it 
rains. And they don't talk to their buddies or sneak a smoke," said Maj. Kenneth Rose of the 
Army's Training and Doctrine Command.

	"A human's attention to detail on guard duty drops dramatically in the first 30 minutes," 
Rose added.

	On guard duty, a robot would always be alert. In battle, it would be inhumanly brave. Left 
behind against superior numbers, it would fight to the bitter end. Ordered to carry out a kamikaze-
style attack, it would not hesitate.

	"Machines know no fear," said Rose, who is the command's staff officer for artificial 
intelligence and robotics.

	In pursuit of a fearless, tireless warrior, military planners and defense industry engineers 
are creating a new generation of automated machines to replace soldiers, sailors, and pilots in some 
combat situations.
     
	The goal is to remove humans from jobs that are highly hazardous, exhausting, or boring, 
and to make it possible for one person, with the aid of robots, to do the work of several.

	So far, robot development has largely been restricted to such tasks as reconnaissance or 
bomb disposal. Remote-controlled surveillance aircraft already are in service, and land-based 
machines that rely on remote control rather than true artificial intelligence are doing well
on proving grounds.

	But fully automated vehicles are at least a decade away, scientists say; true battlefield robots 
need far more computing power, better sensors, and stronger communication links than are 
available today.

	Robots, in other words, need almost to be able to think for themselves.

	While military planners voice enthusiasm for robots that could make it possible for humans 
to remain in "safe" command and control areas behind the front lines, some civilian critics see little 
to cheer about.

	They worry that the push for robots simply continues the arms race.

A critic's view

	Joseph Engleberger, who in 1962 founded the industrial robot company Unimation, said 
he has stayed away from military robotics because he believes other nations would develop 
counter-robots, putting humans at risk again.

	"Suppose, before we had military robots, we got together with the Russians and said, Let's 
agree we won't put them to work in the military?'" In a sense, it is already too late for that.

	Automated fighting machines are in wide use already. Cruise missiles, small unmanned jet 
planes that rely on terrain-following radar and sophisticated computers to deliver warheads deep 
into enemy territory, have been deployed on more than 100 B-52 bombers.

	Intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have been around for 25 years, might be 
considered robots.

	Specialists, however, say the next generation of military robots will go beyond guided 
missiles, to perform tasks that in the past could be done only by human hands, eyes, or minds.

Daunting problems

	"The potential, really, is unlimited," said Jerry Lane, chief of robotics for the Army's Tank 
Automotive Command. "I can ultimately see robot weapons systems fighting robot weapons 
systems.... But we have to solve a lot of technological problems before we get there."

While the potential uses are diverse, the problems remain daunting.

	Specialists say that the future of military robotics lies in creation of machines that can act 
with a high degree of autonomy, machines that, in essence, could think.

	Integrating artificial intelligence into operational machines is one goal of a five-year, $ 600-
million Pentagon program. A chief project is an autonomous land vehicle.

	The ALV, being built by Martin Marietta, looks like a futuristic ice-cream truck. It has eight 
small wheels; a high, box-shaped, and windowless body, and a TV camera mounted on the roof. 
The ALV is a rolling computer lab, designed to test ways to achieve independent computer control 
of a land vehicle.

	That task is much harder than it might sound. Following a road, for example, is easy for a 
human, but not for a robot. The ALV uses an array of TV cameras, sonar beams, and lasers for 
eyes, and then must integrate the data it collects into a coherent "picture" of what is ahead.

	Ultimately, evaluating not only obstacles but also threats and targets , while moving at 
realistic battlefield speeds, would require much faster, more powerful computers.

	Another vital consideration: A robot must be able to distinguish enemy from ally.

	"In Vietnam, our soldiers had a hard time telling the South Vietnamese from the North 
Vietnamese," said Robert Rosenfeld, a program manager at the Research Projects Agency. "If 
humans have a hard time identifying the enemy, you can see it will be hard for robots."
               
	He and others said this problem is perhaps the thorniest of the lot. A truly independent 
"fighting" robot, many experts say, is likely to remain a thing of science fiction into the far-distant 
future.

	Robotics pioneer Engleberger, now chairman of Transitions Research Corporation, in 
Danbury, Conn., remains philosophically opposed to the military uses of robotics.

	"There was a play, called Rossum's Universal Robots,' written in 1922, and in that play 
they built better and better robots until they finally built robots to fight wars," Engleberger recalled. 
"In the end, the robots decided that fighting was crazy, and they took over the world."