KR Washington Bureau | Robots are saving American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan:
By Robert S. Boyd
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON -The Defense Department is rapidly expanding its army of robot warriors on land, air and sea in an effort to reduce American deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.
'We want unmanned systems to go where we don't want to risk our precious soldiers,' said Thomas Killion, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for research and technology.
Robots should take over many of the 'dull, dirty and dangerous' tasks from humans in the war on terrorism, Killion told a conference of unmanned-system contractors in Washington last week.
Despite doubts about the cost and effectiveness of military robots, the Defense Department's new Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategic plan that's updated every four years, declares that 45 percent of the Air Force's future long-range bombers will be able to operate without humans aboard. No specific date was given.
One-third of the Army's combat ground vehicles are supposed to be unmanned by 2015. The Navy is under orders to acquire a pilotless plane that can take off and land on an aircraft carrier and refuel in midair. Robotic submarines also are planned.
The Pentagon is doubling the number of Predators and Global Hawks, unmanned surveillance aircraft that have been prowling the skies since before the Iraq war began."
By Robert S. Boyd
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON -The Defense Department is rapidly expanding its army of robot warriors on land, air and sea in an effort to reduce American deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.
'We want unmanned systems to go where we don't want to risk our precious soldiers,' said Thomas Killion, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for research and technology.
Robots should take over many of the 'dull, dirty and dangerous' tasks from humans in the war on terrorism, Killion told a conference of unmanned-system contractors in Washington last week.
Despite doubts about the cost and effectiveness of military robots, the Defense Department's new Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategic plan that's updated every four years, declares that 45 percent of the Air Force's future long-range bombers will be able to operate without humans aboard. No specific date was given.
One-third of the Army's combat ground vehicles are supposed to be unmanned by 2015. The Navy is under orders to acquire a pilotless plane that can take off and land on an aircraft carrier and refuel in midair. Robotic submarines also are planned.
The Pentagon is doubling the number of Predators and Global Hawks, unmanned surveillance aircraft that have been prowling the skies since before the Iraq war began."
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