Taking point in patrol - the term for assuming the most vulnerable position - is a deadly proposition. It requires an acute awareness of the situation, the ability to move out of harm’s way as soon as things go south, and the real risk that a single false step could set off an explosive and lead to sudden incapacitation or death. This is true for people patrolling in vehicles, and it is true for humans in combat on foot. As with all things first to the battle, why not replace this job with a robot?
Meet the Probot Unmanned Ground Vehicle, from Singapore’s ST Kinetics. Built on the Probot body from Israel’s Roboteam, the ST Kinetics version adds a remote control weapon station, turning the utility platform into an armed machine. This armed Probot has a top speed of just over 5 mph, and can operate for up to 8 hours on battery power.
We shouldn’t think of the Probot as anything like a properly autonomous or independent vehicle; it’s controlled by an operator no further than roughly 1,600 feet from the robot. That puts a human on the trigger of the gun, while the machine can acquire and track targets on its own. The Probot can be steered directly, can adopt a semi-autonomous mode, or can follow another person or vehicle.
Like the combat robots we’ve seen used in Ukraine, the Probot is not replacing infantry any time soon. Instead, it’s a new capability, a first-around-the-corner tool that can shoot back, or that doesn’t become a tragedy when it runs over a buried explosive. It probably won’t replace anyone in a squad, but it might turn one squadmate into a robot-operator. To truly start replacing people on patrol, we’ll need to see a lot more autonomy than the robots presently have. But the bodies are ready, and autonomy is as much a software problem as anything else, so expect that to be the direction these robots take in the future.
Kelsey Atherton blogs about military technology for C4ISRNET, Fifth Domain, Defense News, and Military Times. He previously wrote for Popular Science, and also created, solicited, and edited content for a group blog on political science fiction and international security.
