Sci-fi fans and techno-geeks look forward to the day when robots will fight our wars for us and the line between video games and actual combat becomes hopelessly blurred (This is reportedly a major plot element in James Cameron's upcoming film Avatar.)
Setting aside the moral implications of such a scenario for a moment, let me just say that I got a little taste of that future during a recent event at the National Press Club in Washington.
The dog-and-pony was to commemorate the delivery of the 1,000th military PackBot by iRobot Corp. Adapting its name from Asimov, iRobot is working to advance robotics both at home – they make the Roomba – and on the front lines, where the PackBot is a mainstay in efforts to defuse improvised explosive devices (IEDs) while keeping soldiers at safe distances.
The company wants its robots to be as easy to use as possible. To that end, they've chosen a control interface familiar to most of the 19- and 20-year olds called upon to operate PackBot – PlayStation and Xbox video game controllers. Company officials say the soldiers find it fairly intuitive to direct the robots with the familiar two-handed controllers, having spent hundreds of hours in informal training at home parked in front of their TV sets.
After assuring the iRobot representatives that I was similarly qualified on Playstation/Xbox hardware, they handed me the sticks and let me have at it. I found it was indeed fairly intuitive (although if Gamespot were to review the control scheme I'm sure they'd have a few choice criticisms). The left analog thumbstick did pretty much everything – the bumper buttons on the front toggled between control of the robot and control of its multi-jointed manipulator arm, which was equipped with a pincer-like gripper.
At first I was leaning on the thumbstick a little too hard and the thing lurched around like a new car being driven by a lead-footed teen. But soon I got the hang of it and managed to arrange the robot in front of an inert artillery shell. After a few minutes of fumbling, I managed to grasp the shell with the arm and lift it into the air. Mission accomplished.
There are no armed PackBots in the field yet, but iRobot is taking some baby steps in that direction. The company has built a prototype PackBot with a shotgun on it that could blow open doors or even shoot cartridges of water to render explosives inert.
The Pentagon has a number of thorny questions about command authority and safety to work out before we'll see armed robots in theater. In the meantime, iRobot is negotiating with an undisclosed DOD prime contractor about joining forces on arming PackBot's larger cousin, the Warrior. Provided the negotiations go well, the prime's corporate muscle and integration experience should help get armed robots deployed faster, though no one is taking any guesses as to timetables yet.
