Classification of Robotic Applications

Another field of robotics is military applications which will play an important role in shaping the future of mankind. A large amount of the military robots are developed in order to assist soldiers through several tasks like putting their targets under surveillance or detection of threats. Soldiers who are trying to fulfill these dangerous missions may lose their life even if they are not involved in close engagement with their enemy. One of the hard missions is to spy on enemy units where scientists from all of the world try to find new ways to ease that for soldiers.

There are studies of spying robots controlled by smart phones. As Amareswar et al. explained, such a robot is controlled by a smart phone running Android operating system. It has a network camera installed which is connected to the application that retrieves live video streaming and shows it on the screen (2017, p.685). Flying drones can overcome such dangerous situations as well. One of these drones is the PD-100, being called the “Black Hornet”. As Szegedi et.al explains, such a flying unit weighs 18 g, sneaking behind a wall or a corner, micro cameras mounted can gather visual intelligence of vital importance which makes the robot well-equipped. It moves swiftly, does not make noise and hard to notice. It is possible to put a 1 km distance between the operator and the action (2017, p.223). Another mission that puts soldiers life at risk is detection of potential dangerous objects like land mines. Studies are performed where scientists use image processing methods to make it possible that a machine can detect such objects without risking human life. As Bhat et al. explained, images of the area under watch is captured by camera and transferred to a computer to be processed and saved. Input images are divided into regions and all regions are checked in order to see whether the pixel values are changed.

When a change is detected, so the target is. The process keeps repeating itself as the robot follows the target (2014, pp.21-22). A similar project with an objective of mine detection involves an Arduino microcontroller. As Abilash et al. explained, an ultrasonic sensor on the robot helps to locate the obstacles or dodge them. A gps sensor provides the latitude and longtitude data of the mine to be located. A metal detector can spot the mine. An Arduino UNO microcontroller unites all the functions as the brain of the system (2017, p.1078). In addition to detection of threats, there are machines that can also remove potential threats by themselves. One of this kind is named “Daksh” by Indian scientists. As Szegedi et al. explained, Daksh can spot dangerous items like bombs or suspicious packages and remove any threats (2017, pp.224). Another type of assistant robots are animal shaped legged machines that can follow their operator, carry weights and perform similar tasks. As Raibert et. al explained, Boston dynamics developed “BigDog” as a robot with legs. It is tested for being able to walk on different terrains like snow or mud. It can carry weights up to 154 kg on flat surfaces (2011, pp.2-3). Robots like the “BigDog” can be used not only to contributing warfare, but also to ease simple daily jobs. To summarize, robots that designed as assistant machines can and will bring a new custom of military operation techniques.Second main kind of military robots are the weaponized destroying machines. These robots are featuring a rather new technology although there are exceptions. The assistant robots discussed above are mostly designed to ease tasks for soldiers and save lives if it is possible. But this kind is mainly developed to actively fight against enemy units and potentially replace fighting soldiers in the future.

The first example is the marine robot, Goalkeeper. According to the article by Szegedi et.al, Goalkeeper is a fully-automatic armed machine. Its usage area is defending warships versus missiles, aircraft or vehicles moving on the surface of water. The system can detect, monitor and destroy the targets. Its dual locator system is able to distinguish targets, decide which is the prime concern and strike them (2017, pp.226-227). It is important to notice that the Goalkeeper “decides” when and where to attack all by itself. Another automatic warcraft is “MQ-9 Reaper” which is an “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle”, commonly known as UAV’s. These kind of flying units are usually controlled from a military airbase using computer technology. As Szegedi et.al explains, the Reaper is a weaponized robot that can be utilized to serve a variety of purposes. It flies at medium altitudes and can cover a large radius of operation. It has sensors that can reach long distances, means of communication running multi-mode, firepower that can hit targets accurately, and a significantly long flight endurance. All these properties uniquely make it possible to carry out a fully automatic destruction operation. Missions include destroying targets, gathering intelligence, helping to rescue friendly units and other similar tasks (2017, pp.225).

The last example is named “Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System”, shortly “MAARS” which is an on-ground fighting robot. It is developed by the company Qinetiq North America. According to its product datasheet by Qinetiq North America, it is an agile robot and ready to fight. Soldiers can easily learn how to control MAARS with a wearable gear. The robot provides surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition, lethal, less-lethal and non-lethal operations. Lethal weapons include a 40 mm grenade launcher firing destructive explosives and many more serious firepower (n.d., pp.1-2). MAARS does stand as a future robot-soldier indeed. In conclusion, weaponized military robots are the last and maybe the most important kind of robotic systems.