Robots display force-protection prowess

  • Published
  • By James Coburn
  • 37th Training Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  A demonstration of the latest in robotics and sensor technology gave security forces directors from Air Force commands worldwide some new ideas in how to protect bases and people without endangering personnel.

Robotics experts put 12 robots through some amazing paces during the Aug. 6 demonstration at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

Demonstrations included one robot that crawled up walls and across ceilings, another that clambered over rocks with six rotating legs and a third that wriggled like a snake through a pipe.

Col. Tommy Dillard, Lackland Force Protection Battlelab commander, explained what robotics can do for force protection in the future.

“From an Air Force perspective, we’re looking at robots in the future to do a lot of the force-protection deeds that we have right now,” he said. “Why put a person in harm’s way if you can take a machine and new technology to go ahead and do a first look?”

The technology was brought together as the featured attraction of an exposition of activities by the battlelab, located in the Air Force Security Forces Center here. The lab often uses the institute to investigate its force-protection concepts.

“This event served as the first time we’ve seen such a diverse group of robotic capabilities with force-protection application brought together in a single venue,” said Brig. Gen. James Shamess, Air Force director of security forces at the Pentagon.

Shamess was in San Antonio to lead a two-day meeting of the 2003 Expanded Security Forces Executive Council at the Lackland center.

“We received nothing but rave reviews,” said Senior Master Sgt. Mike Mikell, the battlelab’s coordinator of the event. Besides security-forces directors, he said another 230 security professionals attended, including representatives of the Joint Robotics Working Group, Homeland Security Department, Center for Robotic Assisted Search and Rescue, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FBI and San Antonio Police Department.

Among the robots shown in action was the “Wall Crawler,” which can motor up walls and across ceilings on six wheels. It adheres to various surfaces, including brick walls, by means of a louvered fan that creates a low-pressure region between two adjacent surfaces, said Bryce Wiedeman, vice president of operations for Avionic Instruments Inc.

The 8.5-by-6.5-inch robot can be equipped with a video camera on a boom, he said, “that allows us to take a little peek around a corner or over a ledge into a window.”

He said it works even more efficiently underwater, moving around by remote control on the hull of a ship to send back video for safety examinations.

“People have bought it just the way it is for things like inspecting the fuselage of an aircraft,” Wiedeman said.

Mikell said the battlelab demonstrated its Remote Detection Challenge and Response initiative, which involves a family of robots. This included an almost totally autonomous robot that can patrol a base-perimeter fence or weapons-storage area using cameras assisted with radar.

“Robotics, we think, can enhance our ability to protect our installations, people and resources,” Dillard said. “One of the things we want, and have asked the industry to do, is to be able not only to detect (with robots) but to start a neutralization phase before we can get response forces out there.

“And we think robotics is going to revolutionize how we do that part of the business -- not to replace cops or anything like that, but simply to make us better,” he said. (Courtesy of Air Education and Training Command News Service)