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| Who do you think is giving us the true story here? |
| Kevin Fahey (US army’s Executive Officer for ground forces) |
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| Qinetiq (the company owner) |
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| Neither - there is more to find out |
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| Total Votes : 2 |
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| Author |
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Noel Sharkey
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 12
Location: United Kingdom
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 Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:22 pm Post subject: What happened to the armed Talon SWORDs in Iraq? |
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There has been an interesting story breaking this week about the three Talon SWORDs robots (Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-Action System) that were sent to Iraq last June
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster-Miller_TALON These were reported to have cost around $200,000 each. Many of us have wondered why there was no news about their deployment. Rumour had it that they had not fired a single shot at the enemy.
Then last week (April 9) Popular Mechanics quoted Kevin Fahey (US army’s Executive Officer for ground forces) from a question he answered about the SWORDs during a keynote speech at the RoboBusiness Conference http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4258103.html
| Quote: | | …he confirmed that the robots never opened fire when they weren’t supposed to. His understanding is that “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move.” In other words, the SWORDS swung around in the wrong direction, and the plug got pulled fast. No humans were hurt, but as Fahey pointed out, “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.” |
This was only part of a longer story but this bit was grabbed and sent around the internet on blogs and websites. The presumption was that what Fahey had meant was that the gun had turned to fire on US soldiers.
Now this week (April 15), Popular mechanics came back with a follow up article saying that their report on Fahey had been “…taken so blatantly out of context. What began as a straightforward update about the state of the SWORDS system was repurposed and sensationalized as breaking news about the sudden withdrawal of those three armed robots deployed in Iraq—and as several breaking follow-up reports. Qinetiq, the UK-based company that owns SWORDS-maker Foster-Miller, is disturbed about coverage of our piece, particularly because it appears to be fueling the urban legend of a rogue SWORDS suddenly aiming at hapless humans.”
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4258963.html
Well of course Qinetiq is going to be disturbed. This must be one of their worst nightmares. With a $200,000 price tag, they are not going to want to abandon their project. I thought that the original comments by Fahey was a ambiguous and it simply alerted me to the fact that something odd had happened with the SWORDs but it felt like it was not the whole story. But now the story gets more confusing.
Duane Golvald (deputy project director of Foster-Miller Robotic Systems Joint Project Office) emailed popular mechanics to say:
| Quote: | | The Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-Action System (SWORDS) capability is in theater. The SWORDS robot represents a new technological concept currently in the developmental stage. Three robots have been built so far; and while there has been considerable interest in fielding the system, some technical issues still remain and SWORDS is not currently funded. The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division has used the robots for surveillance and peacekeeping/guard operations. The robot is armed with Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), M249 Light Machine Gun, and has not yet been used with this weapon in combat. |
So what exactly were the technical problems. This statement does not seem to contradict Fahey.
Qinetiq then issued the following statement:
| Quote: | • SWORDS is currently deployed in Iraq, and has been there uninterrupted for almost a year.
• There have been no instances of uncommanded or unexpected movements by SWORDS during this period, whether in-theatre or elsewhere. A few years ago during the robot’s development, there were three minor movement issues that were expected, identified and addressed during rigorous stateside testing—prior to the Army’s Safety Confirmation back in 2006. Here is what actually happened:
- One uncommanded movement was caused by a loose wire (result: redundant wiring on every circuit).
- One was caused by a solder break (result: double solder).
- The third, which may not even count, was a test of the robot sitting on a 45-degree incline in 90-degree heat to see how long it would last. After about two hours and 30 minutes, the motor started to overheat and shut down so it wouldn’t burn out. That caused SWORDS to start to slide backward down the incline. The operator stopped it.
Any comments made after this timeframe about setbacks related to the robotics industry were hypothetical—never in response to some nonexistent SWORDS incident after the Safety Confirmation. |
The question now hanging in the air is, if this all happened before the robots were sent to Iraq, why have then not been deployed and why have they not been further funded? Where there other technical difficulties or not as Fahey suggested?
Foster-Miller further commented that they could not comment on operational tactics for obvious reasons.
This is not a look good for the massive plans to develop autonomous armed unmanned systems when even the remote controlled ones can’t be made to operate safely.
There were a couple of very interesting comments about this story on the slashdot forum though you will have to take these as hearsay since they are anonymous and I am not sure how true they are – they seem quite convincing. It would be good if the authors identified themselves for the record.
| Quote: | by SwordsmanLuke (1083699) on Tuesday April 15, @01:16PM (#23079576)
I work for a robotics company and (among other things) have worked on modifying a TALON (on which these SWORD robots are based) to work with our control software.
if the bit that makes it swivel engages without being told, what on Earth makes you so confident that the bit that makes it shoot will not engage without it being told?
To answer your question, not a damn thing. The TALON I worked with was really flaky. It shook and twitched so frequently the guys who owned the TALON referred to the bot has having the "Foster-Miller shakes."
I hope the SWORD bots are much better quality than the TALON bot, because, quite frankly, there is no fraking way I'd trust one of those things with a gun. |
AND
| Quote: | Someone who works on robot sensors (Score:5, Informative)
by usul294 (1163169) on Tuesday April 15, @12:30PM (#23078890)
I'm an engineer for a company that writes some of the signal analysis for robots, mostly military. They are designed to look for people, noise, or something easily sensible and train their guns on that location and await further instruction. Its a de facto law for military robot design that a human makes every firing decision, but the robot is allowed to aim and ask if it can fire. If a US soldier did something loud (shoot a gun, slam a door, yell) theres a good chance thats what set off the targeting routine. There was never any chance of a weapon being fired, except of course if there was a malicious operator. I have not worked on this type of robot, so I can't be sure of the process. There might be a user command that says "go look for target". If the robot looked for a target without ever being commanded that'd be a pretty horrendous software error. |
I would be very interested to hear what others on AUVSI think about this or can enlighten us further about it. I would even more interested to hear more from the protagonists of the story.
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Noel Sharkey
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Bridwell
Joined: 16 Mar 2009
Posts: 1
Location: Corvallis, Oregon
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| Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:00 pm Post subject: The real risk of SWORDS |
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From DefenseReview.Com:
"...worried about the robot being disabled and disarmed by enemy forces, as has happened with SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System), i.e. the armed/weaponized Talon robot made by Foster-Miller. DefenseReview has been told by U.S. Army Special Forces (SF) contacts of ours that some U.S. Army personnel operating in Afghanistan have jokingly referred to SWORDS as the "Taliban Resupply Vehicle" (TRV) for this reason. Apparently, Taliban fighters will hide and wait for the weaponized Talon robot/SWORDS to roll by, sneak up on it, tip it over, remove the machine gun (or any other weapon) and ammo from it, and then use it/them against U.S. forces."
SWORDS is not autonomous. It is basically an RC model tank on steroids. It almost sounds like the writer is trying to create a tempest in an empty teapot. |
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Noel Sharkey
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 12
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:20 am Post subject: |
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Sorry about the tardiness of the reply but thank you very much for this extremely useful update.
I have not been greatly impressed by the TALON sword myself and often say that all you have to do is throw a blanket over it.
In fact when I spoke to one of the people who test the military robots (sorry I cannot reveal the name), he told me that if you watch the videos the robots are always seen on flat unmuddy ground.
The armed TALON though does show intent and I don't think that its replacement, the MAARS, is such a pushover and it would take a lot of people to push over the DARPA/CMU 7.5ton Crusher which does have autonomous operation. But these have not been fielded yet.
P.W. Singer, in Wired for War, equates current war robots to the model T ford and we are rapidly moving toward high performance. Bill Gates draws a parallel between current military robots computers in 1980s and he says that we are. "on the verge of a new era."
So the teapot is not quite empty although it will be some time before it is full. I will do a posting on the new US Airforce plans soon.
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Noel Sharkey
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