The Portland Air Nationwide Guard’s 142nd Safety Forces Squadron turned the primary Guard unit within the nation to obtain a brand new “robotic canine” and plans to check the expertise for surveillance and base safety operations.
The Oregon-based Guard unit’s “Quad-legged Unmanned Floor Car,” in any other case referred to as the Q-UGV, can conduct video surveillance and patrol a fence line with out placing airmen at risk. Robotic canines first made an look at active-duty bases final 12 months, and the gear and testing are actually trickling all the way down to the Guard.
The 142nd acquired the Q-UGV initially of the 12 months, in response to the bottom’s public affairs workplace, and the safety forces have began demonstrating the expertise to different items all through the state this previous month.
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“We have simply been testing it by programming in numerous routes and seeing how the GPS works in our state of affairs right here on the base,” Tech. Sgt. Jamie Cuniff of the 142nd instructed ABC’s KATU TV station in Portland final month.
“[We’re] additionally placing it by way of completely different terrain checks, up and down hills and stairs, seeing the way it interacts with autos and the way autos work together with it and the folks on the set up,” he mentioned.
The Q-UGV, designed by Ghost Robotics and Immersive Knowledge, has quite a lot of cameras and sensors on board and might climb up rugged terrain in addition to high-step over obstacles.
A single cost powers the robotic canine for seven hours. It’s managed remotely by a safety forces operator on the bottom, however the plan is to finally have the Q-UGV set on a pre-programed path to run autonomously.
Final 12 months, the 325th Fighter Wing out of Tyndall Air Drive Base in Florida turned the primary within the Protection Division to amass the expertise. It acquired 4 Q-UGV’s for base safety operations.
“I can say that there’s undoubtedly a number of curiosity within the capabilities of the expertise,” Grasp Sgt. Krystoffer Miller of the 325th Safety Forces Squadron mentioned in a information launch final 12 months. “I am hopeful that different items will see a few of the successes at Tyndall and can proceed to discover the usage of nonconventional ways.”
The 142nd in Portland has taken the Q-UGV to different bases, reminiscent of Kingsley Discipline in Klamath Falls, Oregon, final month, to showcase the way it might assist with routine base duties.
“We’re additionally going to have the aptitude to talk to folks by way of the robotic,” Cuniff instructed KATU. “So if we do encounter a person, we are able to have interaction with them verbally, remotely, from one other place on base, whereas we’re responding on the identical time. It is a simultaneous response functionality that we have by no means seen earlier than.”
The Q-UGVs in Portland and at Tyndall are unarmed however, notably, Ghost Robotics displayed one of many robotic canines fitted with a rifle on the Affiliation of the US Army’s 2021 annual convention.
The usage of autonomous weapons and gear within the navy has gained curiosity and recognition during the last decade.
Ghost Robotics’ Q-UGV resembles the four-legged creation of Boston Dynamics, a yellow robotic named Spot, which has been in viral movies from the corporate since 2019.
Ghost Robotics additionally partnered with the Division of Homeland Safety earlier this 12 months to check its robotic canines to be used on the border.
The information made many Twitter customers evaluate the Q-UVG to the killer canine robotic from the “Metalhead” episode of “Black Mirror,” during which a girl runs by way of the desert to flee the clutches of the autonomous villain.
The bigger dialogue of the position of autonomous programs within the navy, and the way they’ll have an effect on future jobs within the ranks, is simply starting to take form as extra innovations attain the sphere.
However Henrik Christensen, director of the Institute for Contextual Robotics at UC San Diego, instructed Army.com it is unlikely that we’ll see widespread substitute of safety forces by robotic canines within the close to future.
“I believe the development we’re seeing is we’re making an attempt to automate what are referred to as the soiled, boring and harmful duties,” Christensen mentioned. “The boring job goes round and patrolling … however we’re nonetheless going to wish the folks, as a result of if one thing is detected, we’re not going to have canines that may robotically do intervention.”
— Thomas Novelly could be reached at thomas.novelly@navy.com. Observe him on Twitter @TomNovelly.
Associated: Robotic Safety Canines Have Arrived at Tyndall Air Drive Base
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