Dragon Eye UAV
Dragon Runner
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Dragon Eye UAV
Dragon Runner
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BAQOUBA, Iraq By the light of flashlights and a crescent moon, the three-member crew catapults a 300-lb. pilotless airplane into the sky.
Minutes later, other U.S. soldiers behind a computer screen inside a shed monitor video images from the plane, known as a Shadow, as it loiters over a traffic circle frequently attacked by insurgent bombs.
"We fill some of the gaps in the intelligence field. We put one of these in harm's way instead of a soldier. It's all about saving lives," says Sgt. Francisco Huereque, who is in charge of the night's launch.
Unmanned aerial vehicles and other so-called "stand-off" weapons, whether currently used or in secret testing, belong to a developing high-tech arsenal that the U.S. military says will help minimize casualties as it battles insurgents.
Most of the systems are slated for continued, if not intensified, use as Iraqi forces train to take over the bulk of combat operations from the Americans though when that might happen remains uncertain.
More than 1,120 U.S. soldiers have died in the conflict at a current rate of more than two each day.
In units like the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, several surveillance drones and specially equipped terrestrial vehicles are deployed daily to protect soldiers against what persists as the deadliest killer roadside explosives.
An armored, tractor-like vehicle called the Meerkat is often dispatched to detect suspected improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, while soldiers stand safely back. The South African-made vehicle, which can be driven by a soldier or operated by remote control, can withstand the simultaneous blast of three anti-tank mines, said Staff Sgt. Darrell Theurer, a Bismarck, N.D., native.
Combing the roads around this provincial capital 35 miles north of Baghdad, Theurer's unit also trots out the Buffalo, a massive, heavily armored machine that can run Meerkats by remote control and plow through a minefield to scoop up explosives with its retractable arm.
In other missions, robots are called in to shoot video of the insides of cars suspected of carrying bombs.
The life-protecting technologies extend to the airwaves.
A system installed in Humvees called Warlock, made by EDO Corp. of New York, can jam signals from mobile telephones, garage door openers and other remote-control devices used by insurgents to detonate explosives.
Officers say that without such technologies, casualties would unquestionably be higher.
The Pentagon estimates some 40 percent of improvised explosive devices are now discovered before rebels set them off.
Higher up the military chain from the brigade, still classified technology to ferret out roadside bombs is being tried out while in the wings are other intelligence-gatherers that may or may not make it to the Iraqi battlefield.
On the ground, a variety of new unmanned vehicles are expected to enter the field in coming years.
Among them is the Military R-Gator, built by tractor-maker Deere & Co. and iRobot, which makes the far smaller remote-controlled PackBot robots already deployed to scout out dangerous locations and dispose of explosives. The R-Gator, set to begin full production in 2006, will be autonomous, meaning it will navigate and perform some tasks without any input from humans.
In the air, military officials are investigating the use of stationary, spherical "spy in the sky" airships and a digital camera packed into a mortar shell that transmits photos to a soldier's laptop while the shell floats to the ground attached to a parachute.
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, were flying over Iraq even before the war began and now range from the high-altitude, super-sophisticated Global Hawk to the Raven, which comes in a carrying case and is launched by just flipping it into the air.
The tiny Raven is just 3 feet long, with a wing span of 4 1/2 feet, and weighs 4 pounds. It can fly as far away as nine miles and stay in the air for 80 minutes.
Military officials will not reveal the total number of UAVs being used in Iraq, citing operational security.
But Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank in Washington, said he has heard that UAVs across all branches are performing about 400 sorties a day in Iraq.
The U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., which developed the Raven, said in May that more than 100 of the tiny UAVs were being deployed this year in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's clear from the troops on the ground that they'll take as many as they can get.
"It's such a sought-after commodity, they can't churn them out fast enough," says Sgt. Michael Lucas, a pilotless-craft mission commander from Jerseyville, Ill. Soldiers are also being streamed out of the nine-month UAV training school.
This brigade operates four Shadows, which are used mainly to snoop for roadside explosives, car bombs, rebel mortar positions, urban snipers and insurgents who may be stalking U.S. convoys.
Soldiers with Huereque, who is from Prineville, Ore., say a Shadow will be in the air 45 minutes after an order is given, much quicker than it takes for the unit to receive images from satellites.
One Shadow recently tracked a van driving from a mortar emplacement as it dropped off four individuals at various points before arriving at a house.
Alerted about what the Shadow had seen, ground troops moved in to round up six insurgents who were carrying incriminating evidence: the insurgents' own video of mortars being fired at U.S. bases, according to 2nd Lt. Liesel Himmelberger, who monitors real-time images from UAVs in the brigade's operation center.
It's also suspected that as a UAV flies overhead, its mere sound described as "a lawnmower on steroids" may help save lives.
"If you're doing something nasty and you have one buzzing over your head at 5,000 feet you might just break off," says Himmelberger, of Newburgh, N.Y.
The brigade's intelligence officer, Maj. Kreg Schnell, says the unit that replaces theirs when it leaves Iraq in February will be more digitally advanced.
But Schnell, from Seattle, is skeptical about how many lives can be saved as the Americans seek to put more unmanned machines in the line of fire and relegate soldiers to the role of intelligence collectors.
"It's a force-oriented enemy that will still come after us," Schnell predicts. "Economic and political well-being for the Iraqis, that will save American lives."
The battle for control of Fallujah seen by U.S. and Iraqi authorities as crucial for the pacification of Iraq has begun with air strikes and a major buildup of force outside the Sunni city.
The next stage a potentially very violent, street-to-street struggle to take the city itself could begin at any time. It is likely to produce major casualties on both sides, a prospect that prompted the United States to abort a Marine assault on the city in April.
While officials on the ground in Iraq and others with knowledge of the operation were providing no details on the planned assault, military analysts say U.S. forces are likely to apply lessons learned from the disastrous experience in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993, when the bodies of U.S. soldiers being dragged through the streets caused a re-evaluation of urban warfare strategy.
Dave Dilegge, a retired Marine and an urban-warfare expert, said the rethinking suggested the likelihood of more-coordinated operations between air and ground forces, humanitarian capabilities in place and prepared for post- combat operations, and a greater emphasis on precision specialists, such as snipers.
"You take a 500-pound bomb, you can put it places, but the chances are you will have collateral damage (civilian casualties)," said Dilegge. "With a sniper, if he's trained, he will know what his target is."
Marine scout snipers have been used widely and effectively throughout the Iraq conflict, said Sgt. Owen Mulder, primary marksmanship instructor at Camp Pendleton's School of Infantry in San Diego County.
"They're probably the most dangerous individual on the battlefield right now," said Mulder, who served in Iraq during the initial combat phase.
Marine snipers go through 10 weeks of specialized training, focusing on firing high-powered M40A1 rifles from various distances and in different environments. Many of them are trained specifically in urban environments, learning to operate through windows and doorways and to distinguish enemy combatants from innocent civilians.
"A head will pop up in a window, they'll hit them, ranges up to 2,000 yards," said Mulder. "Very rarely will they miss. Especially in urban environments, where ranges rarely exceed 500 yards."
Snipers are likely to be a critical component in the assault on Fallujah, agreed John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a military research institute in part because a purely air campaign, while it could certainly subdue the city, could have negative repercussions.
"If we simply pulverize the city, it would look bad on TV," he said.
Pike also emphasized the need to distinguish between insurgent and ordinary civilian.
"If we can just get the people that can reconcile themselves to the new dispensation out of the way and then kill the few thousand people who can't reconcile themselves, then we can let the remaining 98 percent come back and live out their lives," Pike said. "If we bomb the place to the ground, those peace-loving people won't have a home to live in."
In the event of an assault, said Pike, U.S. forces would be likely to divide Fallujah into sectors and station two- to four-man sniper teams in each sector positioned for a wide field of vision as Marine patrols move through the city, checking building after building for insurgents, flushing them out into the snipers' field of fire. A similar tactic was used with considerable success last April before the earlier assault on Fallujah was called off, Pike said.
Artillery and air support would be on hand, enabling the patrols to call down 500-pound bombs on specific positions, although military analysts warn of the possibility of unintended casualties should such air support be summoned.
"One of the reasons that they are so reliant on snipers is precisely to minimize that," said Pike.
The patrolling Marines also will have access to a Dragon Runner, a four-wheeled surveillance drone with sensors and a camera that can "see around the corner" and is sturdy enough to be dropped from a Humvee traveling 25 mph or thrown through a second-story window.
"A squad leader would go out, say on a foot patrol," said Capt. Kyle Patton, project officer for Dragon Runner at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Va. "He can employ the Dragon Runner to check out danger areas, areas of interest, on reconnaissance before he sends one of his own Marines. If they do spot something, they have a good rough idea where it's at. They can send Marines in to take out that threat or have a pretty good idea of coordinates to call in fire."
Additional assistance comes from another robot surveillance drone called Dragon Eye, a five-pound battery-powered aircraft launched by bungee cord or by hand that can fly at 35 knots for nearly an hour on one charge and can see with low-light and infrared cameras.
"You basically point and click where you want it to go on the map display on your laptop," said Maj. John Giscard, the device's project leader.
There are 35 Dragon Eye systems in Iraq, each with three aircraft, Giscard said. Reaction from the Marines has been "extremely positive," said Giscard. "They want more of them. They want them out there faster. They're flying three or four missions a day with them."
But the Marines, with their snipers and robotic assistants, are unlikely to go in before other tasks are accomplished, said Barak Salmoni, assistant professor in National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.
Salmoni cited the current bombing campaign, designed both to obliterate insurgent command posts, armories and mined areas as well as to encourage civilians to leave the city before the ground assault something he said would probably be emphasized by cutting off water and other supplies.
There are also "information operations," such as the media tour of the new military morgue, the majority of which, Salmoni said, is more designed as a warning "for Iraqi consumption."
The campaign will also involve Iraqi forces, military observers say, but later in the operation a few carefully selected forces whose chief function might be to secure high-profile sites such as mosques and offer a welcoming, non-American face to returning Fallujans after the battle.
But all such plans might prove trickier in reality, warned Mark Burgess, a research analyst for the Center for Defense Information.
"If the insurgents are worth their salt, they will be doing their utmost to ensure that noncombatants do not just melt away, leaving combatants to fight it out with U.S. troops," he said. "It will also be difficult to ensure it is just noncombatants being filtered through any cordon the U.S. sets up."
Despite the threats, and the distinct possibility that an assault may end up being far bloodier than anticipated, Burgess and other analysts say the insurgency in Fallujah must be dealt with before it acquires even more symbolic importance.
"With the U.S. election safely out of the way, for Washington politically this may be the best window of opportunity to fix the Fallujah problem that has opened yet," said Burgess.
Unmanned vehicles aid military Dragon Eye
UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)
Dimensions: 45-inch wingspan, 36-inch length
Weight: 5 pounds
Range: 3 miles
Time aloft: 30-60 minutes
Cruising speed: 40 mph
Altitude: Up to 500 feet
Equipped with: Low-light and infrared cameras
How it works: The plane is launched either by hand or bungee cord and radio- controlled from a portable transmitter .
Dragon Runner
Robotic surveillance device
Dimensions: 15.5 inches long, 11 inches wide, 5 inches high
Weight: 9 pounds
Equipped with: Front mounted, tilting camera; wireless modem; UHF video transmitter
How it works: The vehicle is operated with the use of a hand-held controller that includes a 4-inch video display
Sources: United States Joint Forces Command; Military.com; Carnegie Mellon University
Chuck it, roll it in, use it to spy on your enemies -- meet the Dragon Runner, the toughest portable surveillance robot in use by U.S. forces.
Troops can throw it around a corner, through a window, up the stairs, on the roof or in a cave and the rugged Dragon Runner will land on its feet and continue its mission.
The Dragon Runner, a 9-pound rear-wheel drive robot, is designed to save lives by allowing tactical troops to "see around the corner" in an urban environment. Photo by K.L. Vantran (Click photo for screen-resolution image); high-resolution image available.
The 9-pound portable surveillance robot is designed to save service members' lives by allowing tactical troops to "see around the corner" in an urban environment.
Funded by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and the Office of Naval Research in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, the baseline model uses a wireless modem and UHF video transmitter. A rear-mounted handle allows for easy handling and pull-pin power on/off operation. The front-mounted tilting camera provides video feedback.
Army Col. Bruce Jette, director of the Rapid Equipping Force, Fort Belvoir, Va., was one of the first to use the Dragon Runner in the caves of Afghanistan. "We lost a couple of (robots) to improvised explosive devices, but that's OK it wasn't soldiers. Robotics (in the field) is working."
The Rapid Equipping Force has teams in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its mission, noted Jette, is to increase mission capability while decreasing the risk to soldiers and to "do it rapidly." And, he said, you can't do one without the other.
"We cover our brass and go out into the field to talk with commanders, troops," said Jette, who recently returned from Iraq. "We relay what they need back to the office. We'll go anywhere for rapid solutions, but it has to meet the commanders' requirements."
The teams equip, insert and access the equipment in 90-day spirals, said the director.
"If the commander says some piece of equipment stinks, it's not going to ruin my program," said Jette. "The question is 'Can we fix it? What can we do to find a valid solution?"
Although some equipment may look "immature or toyish," Jette said that doesn't matter. What does matter is whether it works. "It's not a tank; it doesn't have to last years," he added. "We produce rapid technical solutions to problems that are encountered today."
[Above text by American Forces Press Service]
Dragon Runner: The Skinny
Dragon Runner is a small, four-wheeled, rear-wheel drive, front-wheel steer, man-portable mobile ground sensor designed to increase situational awareness. It will give tactical Marine units the capability to see around the corner in an urban environment.
Dragon Runner is part of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab's Project RSTA, an effort to develop a reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition network of sensors that portrays a picture of the battlespace, enabling enhanced situational awareness for small unit leaders.
Background: Small, tactical units rely on their eyes and ears for force protection and reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition information. In today's battlespaces, small unit leaders increasingly enter urban or complex hostile environments and encounter life-threatening situations. Dragon Runner aims to address a number of these capability requirements.
Description: Dragon Runner will increase a Marine's situational awareness by providing observation of tactical objectives and potential danger areas beyond his line of sight where human access is impractical or unsustainable. The system will enhance force protection by standing watch in Sentry Mode by using several on-board sensors to provide real-time imagery and audio alerts. The prototype Dragon Runner Mobile Ground Sensor System consists of a mobile ground sensor vehicle, a small operator control unit and a simple user interface. It includes video, audio, and motion sensors and the capability to collect imagery during daylight and darkness. The system is easy to operate, requiring little formal operator training.
Recent Dragon Runner developments include: daylight readable display, mini-zoom camera, improved shell, all-wheel-drive/ skid steer, payload interface, custom backpack, custom antennae, and Mil-freq radio suite. The total system, including pack and batteries, will not exceed a weight of 30 pounds. A non-active and invertible suspension enables Dragon Runner to be tossed through windows, up stairs, and over walls for a rapid deployment capability day or night.
At 15.5 inches long, 11.25 inches wide and five inches high, Dragon Runner will fit inside the standard Modular, Light Weight, Load Carrying Equipment (MOLLE) Patrol Pack. The Dragon Runner mobile ground sensor system consists of a vehicle, and a small Operator Control System (OCS) with a four-inch video display and an ambidextrous Handheld Controller for one-handed operation, all held in a custom backpack. The vehicle has a top speed of around 20 mph and can also be operated with slow, deliberate, finite control. The system can be deployed from the pack in less than 3 seconds.
Reality Check
"Loss is acceptable; waste is not." -- Ancient military axiom
The concept of Force Protection ties into the above quotation. The simple goal is to reduce loss and eliminate the waste of "irreplaceable resources" -- in other words, military servicemenbers. One means to do so is through Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), or ensuring that every conceivable military aspect of a location, from ambushes to road access, has been reviewed and addressed. The Dragon Runner has been designed for IPB, and to provide "real time" Force Protection by surveying potential enemy positions without exposing friendly forces to hostile fire.
While on its face this is an acceptable use of resources (better that a robot is destroyed in an ambush than a squad of infantrymen) the question must be asked: "Does the Dragon Runner indirectly expose soldiers to more danger than it saves them from?" A number of remotely operated intelligence gathering vehicles are in service with the U.S. military (most notably the Hunter and the Predator), and no one can deny that the intelligence they have gathered has saved American and Allied lives. But the greatest difference between these platforms and the Dragon Runner is the fact that the Dragon Runner's use immediately informs hostile forces there are American soldiers in the area.
For example, the Predator has a range of hundreds of miles and an endurance cycle measured in hours. A terrorist seeing one in the sky may be aware of what it is, and may take cover to prevent being seen, but its presence in the sky does not necessarily mean that American forces are in the next room ready to strike. This is not the case with the Dragon Runner, which must be operated locally by an individual using a control pad and a video monitor.
In addition, where an enemy soldier might not even notice a Predator UAV orbiting his position at 3,000 feet, there is very little chance that someone will fail to notice the 15" square, 5" tall, 15-pound, 4-wheeled Dragon Runner. In addition, there is very little chance that the Dragon Runner can be used in a close quarter battle (CQB) situation and maintain tactical surprise. Terrorists are unlikely to ignore the Dragon Runner as it comes down the hallway of their hideout, much less fail to hear it as it is thrown up the stairs. Surprise is sacrificed, as the enemy is now alerted to the presence of American forces. Initiative, too, as the enemy, upon seeing the Dragon Runner, will immediately take steps to prepare themselves for combat (or worse, detonate an IED (Improvised Explosive Device)), resulting in the loss of not only soldiers' lives, but potentially civilian lives as well.
The motto of the British Special Air Service (SAS) is, "Who dares, wins." This means seizing the initiative, neutralizing the enemy through audacity and shock, and eliminating him with violence and superior firepower. Gathering intelligence is a laudable goal and research into stealthy ground based systems should continue, but the question must be asked: "Are the benefits of the Dragon Runner worth the risk?"
-- Eric Daniel, Military.com
source: http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_DragonRobot,,00.html 7nov04
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