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Robotics Changing War into a Video Game

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PCQ Bureau
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Robots have always created curiosity and mystery in the

minds of humans and that is evident from the interest we have shown in the field

and anticipations we have from this field. These anticipations have been

reflected in the futuristic sci-fi movies or novels. And with not much ado, the

scientists and researchers around the world have been making futuristic

picturizations of robots emulating humans a reality. In recent times we have

heard stories of robots serving coffees at restaurants in Japan or welcoming

guests at home. The robots have for long been used in manufacturing industries,

but now we see robots coming out of industrial spaces to social places. A modern

day robot can be found doing activities like lawn mowing and home cleaning to

detecting landmines in military operations and doing complex surgical

operations. And robots are able to deliver all the functions with high

performance on a consistent manner without any failure. Last year when we

discussed this topic, we focused on what futuristic robots are going to be like

and what type of research was being done in this field. This time we will be

talking of trends that are going on in this domain and what we can expect in

coming years.

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Standardized robots



If one looks at the robotics field, there isn't any standardization.

Everyone who is building a robot is using their own research, programming codes

and the hardware. If you consider robotics as an industry, then it's a totally

fragmented one, with each robot being built having its own specialized software

and programming tools. It is now being contemplated to have a standard set of

programming tools or an operating system for robots, so that manufacturers can

build robots using such operating systems rather than inventing new

infrastructure each time. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is one such step

towards bringing in standardization in the field of robotics. It aims to bridge

the gaps between various robots as they are unique at the moment from each other

and are built from the ground up with proprietary operating systems. The ROS

will try to change that by providing a platform that allows programmers to code

functions for robots. The programmers do not have to know the robot, they can

work on simulated or emulated robots to test their programming codes. The

programming code thus created can then be customized and reused on other robots

that the manufacturer builds without having to start from the scratch again.





Robots that emulate human intelligence will come, and such capability would
have enormous value. While humans remain a unique combination of a variety

of capabilities and emotional intelligence, robots are trying to out-perform

humans with accuracy, repeatability, productivity and replacing humans from

difficult/ hazardous situations to perform a particular task. The domain of

Robotics has to go through a phase of standardization as we have seen

happenning for the PC market. Since the application of robotics is more

diversified, it will take comparatively more time for a standard to get

evolved. Standardization needs to happen anyway, but it can be a mistake to

push for it too soon.

Jayakrishnan T, Director and Country Manager, Energid Technologies


During the initial phase the PC market too didn't have any

standardization and each PC manufacturer was building a proprietary PC. With

time when processes were standardized, the PC boom happened. Whether the same

standardization in the robotics domain can in near future lead to such boom is

what time will tell, not so distant in future.

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The MQ9 Predator, an unmanned combat aerial vehicle firing

missiles at the target.

Changing modern warfare



The incorporation of robotics technology in the battle-field has changed the

complete war scenario now. In the past decade there have been deployments of

remotely operated systems like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) called as drones

on the warfront, but they all have humans in the loop. The US military is now

working on systems that would not just be remotely operated but would also have

the intelligence to engage enemy targets without human instruction. That would

be combining Artificial Intelligence techniques into robotic combat vehicles,

which can take war to immoral extremes. The three primary applications where

robotics has proven useful in helping military are:

1.Robotic assistance during military operations

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2.Providing medical facilities at warfront

3.Performing military operations autonomously

Microsoft

Robotics Studio
Moving towards standardization of robot development, the

company which is the leading operating systems provider, Microsoft, has

started an initiative in that direction. They have unveiled Microsoft

Robotics Studio, a software development tool that can be used for a wide

range of robots, ranging from industrial robots to robots available to

consumers. This tool can be compared to what DOS was for the PC market in

the early days. With this product, Microsoft aims to provide a common

technological platform that the industry lacks at the moment. The Robotics

Studio tool incorporates several components like a programming environment

for coding and debugging the software similar to Visual Studio, a virtual

runtime environment that functions as an operating system for robot, and

also a simulator on which programmers can model their robots, and also test

how robots will behave to their software without having to build and test

their code on an actual robot.

The research has been largely focused on the first two

fields. Military robots are used for disposing of explosives, for combat

engineering tasks like clearing mines or placing explosives, reconnaissance,

detecting nuclear and biological agents, among others tasks. The objective is to

save the soldiers from eminent dangerous tasks like mine detection or explosive

diffusion. Predator, the unmanned aircraft with surveillance and missile firing

capabilities has successfully been used in warfronts from Bosnia to Afghanistan,

by the US military. The unmanned ground vehicle called Gladiator is being

developed that can be used in urban warfare and will precede troops to assess

the dangers of the locale and can also respond to attacks with lethal force.

Both these systems are remotely-operated and provide a video feed to the soldier

who operates them from a video-game like controlled environment. Though the use

of robotics in modern warfare has changed the gamut of battlefield completely,

it has also resulted in life saving medical technologies like telesurgical

robotic operations. The injured soldier can be operated at the warfront by a

doctor who undertakes the operation from a distant location using a robotic

surgical arm. And such technology has now been put to use for civilian purposes

too, where doctors have operated on patients for critical heart surgeries who

are in different locations. These are just the first generation robotic

technologies compared with what is coming. The prototypes of the next generation

of unmanned systems don't just pack a lethal armory of missiles, rockets and

machine guns; they make their own decisions, such as taking out targets and

engaging with the enemy. Replacing soldiers with fully autonomous robots is

something we yet have to go a long way to reach that goal. On the flip side,

when robots completely replace humans in battlefields in future, then if two

formidable nations with robotic armies go to war, this would result in

significant human cost saved. But the down side will be that environmental

damage caused could be similar to a small nuclear war.

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