Image Credit: U.S. Army/Handout
More Doc Brown, less Dr. Frankenstein.
With technology constantly emerging, it is important that our military stays abreast of what is going on. A “Mad Scientist” initiative recently begin in the Army to help build an idea of where they’re heading in the future.
The Army began the Mad Scientist initiative years ago and it was very popular. With larger-scale operations coming on the horizon, they felt it was a good time to reinstate the program.
The intent of the program is to promote collaboration between academia and industry. They wanted to bring creative thinkers to the table to get a different perspective of how things are done and how they can be tweaked. It is imperative that the Army keeps up to date on the emerging technology that is constantly evolving.
This conference had a heavy focus on robotic technology. It is expected that the future will involve human-machine collaborations as well as human-machine combat teams. They stressed that the robots will not be replacing the manpower that we have, but rather, working collaboratively with them.
Another reason behind the use of robots in the future is for economical purposes. We may not be able to afford all the humans that we need in the future. The robots will be able to man various systems to save money, while still protecting various areas. The conference stressed that one of the dangers of the robotic system is that communication can be hijacked. This ability to compromise the communication systems is something that will continuously be worked out.
The Army will eventually be working with a virtual environment to see firsthand what the robots can and cannot do. This will give them the opportunity to tweak different situations to get them right when going to battle is needed. This is a great way to keep everyone up to speed on where the future is heading!
