News Blog

BAE Systems is developing tiny robots to help soldiers gather information in battlefield situations while maintaing their safety.

(Credit: BAE Systems)

Warfare is scary enough, but now some scientists want to throw some spiders and snakes into the action, but with the intention of making it less scary for soldiers.

BAE Systems is developing electronic spiders, insects, and snakes to help soldiers gather information without exposing them to dangerous situations on the battlefield, according an announcement the defense giant released this week. The effort is being funded by a $38 million agreement with the U.S. Army.

The Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Collaborative Technology Alliance aims to create miniature robots that will act as the eyes and ears of soldiers in dangerous situations, such caves and mountainous areas, potentially saving many lives.

A promotional video released by BEA depicts some of the prospective designs and how soldiers might deploy and process the information the robots gather. The video shows robot spiders scurrying around corners and mechanical dragonflies hovering in windows, with images transmitted to wrist-mounted monitors and command centers, warning them of potential threats.

"Robotic platforms extend the warfighter's senses and reach, providing operational capabilities that would otherwise be costly, impossible, or deadly to achieve," said Joseph Mait, MAST cooperative agreement manager for the Army Research Laboratory.

The Army has been working on a variety of remote-controlled devices to aid soldiers in battle situations as part of its Future Combat Systems program, the Army's largest modernization initiative.

iRobot, the company that helps clean homes with the Roomba and Scooba, announced a contract last year to supply the Army with PackBots, robots that can lift 30 pounds, climb stairs, roll over rubble, rocks, mud and snow on polymer tracks that use a patented flipper to stay right-side-up.

The price tag on the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (PDF) has gone up 168 percent--just one of the military's flagship programs that cost more, take longer to produce, and deliver less, according to a government report.

(Credit: GDLS)

The military has doubled the amount it will spend on new weapons systems since 2000, but many are behind schedule or cannot deliver on the crucial technological innovations, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) found in an annual review of 72 high-profile programs.

Proposed spending has rocketed from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion since 2000, a 26 percent increase, according to the congressional watchdog agency. But more money has not meant better results. Even at increased costs, the GAO found, weapons programs are failing to deliver promised capabilities and are almost never on time. This means that the military must settle for "suboptimal" acquisitions and late delivery to the battlefield, even though the "warfighter's urgent need" is what's often cited when these weapon systems are pitched.

The average delay is 21 months, according to the report. Of all the programs assessed, none had met the "best-practices standards" for mature technologies, stable design, or mature production, which are essential to meet cost, schedule, and performance targets.

(Credit: GAO)

Money misspent on weapon systems means not only reduced buying power for defense, but also less money for other priorities--such as the global war on terror and growing entitlement programs, Acting Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro warned Congress.

The report identified four major problems with the Defense Department's acquisition process: program changes (63 percent of performance requirements changed mid-stream), frequent program manager turnover (making it hard to hold anyone accountable), reliance on private contractors to support and oversee contracts (fox guarding the hen house), and weapon systems dependent on increasingly complex, yet-to-be-developed software (we need more H-1B visas).

At a U.S. House of Representatives hearing, about a dozen military-issue items procured on eBay and Craigslist by "undercover" government investigators were on display.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com)

WASHINGTON--Night-vision cameras and camouflage gear are probably available at your local Wal-Mart. But congressional leaders on Thursday voiced dismay at reports that "sensitive" military-issue equipment is being resold, potentially to terrorists, at Web sites like eBay and Craigslist and suggested new laws are necessary to ban that practice.

Among the dozen items that mostly "undercover" government investigators purchased during a yearlong investigation of those two leading sites were F-14 fighter jet antennas (only Iran currently operates F-14s, the committee noted), night vision goggles, infrared tape worn by troops to "differentiate friend from foe," a complete military-issue Army combat uniform, body armor, and "Meals, Ready to Eat" (MREs). (Click here for the entire Government Accountability Office report (PDF).)

Right now, it's not necessarily illegal to sell those goods, either online or offline, although the military does have regulations restricting how some of them are disposed.

"It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to understand the troubling nature of some of these items being sold online," said Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), chairman of a House of Representatives national security subcommittee that called for the investigation.

Tierney cited an episode about a year ago when insurgents dressed in American combat uniforms raided a security post in Iraq and killed five American soldiers, although it's not clear how they obtained those uniforms.

Moreover, the committee leaders bristled at the thought of seeing taxpayer-funded equipment resold for a profit, when it could be used by troops in combat.

By calling Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and eBay government relations chief Tod Cohen to Washington for the hearing, the subcommittee seemed to be preparing to place those executives in the hot seat. But the tone of that questioning was actually quite cordial. At the end of the panel, Tierney even praised the companies for "trying very hard" to keep sensitive military goods off their sites and acknowledged the rules of the road aren't the most clear.

Both Buckmaster and Cohen said they both supported the idea of developing clear rules outlining what is and isn't legal to sell, although Cohen emphasized that any new rules must apply not only online but offline as well. Buckmaster, for his part, suggested in response to a question that perhaps a law could be "passed banning sale of any U.S. military-issued item that's, say, less than 50 years old."

Tierney said he could understand why the sites would feel "constrained" telling their users they can't sell such goods when it's not explicitly illegal to do so. "It's sort of amazing to me we haven't had a law banning sales" of those items, he remarked.

Rather than the Internet companies, Defense Department officials endured much of the heat from politicians. Tierney began by accusing the officials of failing to be be cooperative about coming to testify before his committee. He repeatedly suggested they don't have adequate control over their inventory, highlighting particular concerns over military uniforms being sold online.

These night-vision goggles and "ready to eat" meals were bought online as part of a government investigation. Politicians are considering new laws to limit resale of such goods, which they fear could get into the hands of terrorists and others who want to cause harm.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com)

Alan Estevez, a deputy under secretary of defense, said that at a "macro level," he thinks the military's policies are working well, with only a minority of its members breaking its internal equipment rules. Besides, it's currently legal to sell body armor and night-vision goggles, although there are some restrictions on exporting them, Estevez said. Nor is it illegal to sell military uniforms, which soldiers buy from American companies, often out of their own pockets, he noted.

"I certainly agree having someone dress up as a U.S. military member is something we need to control from a force protection issue," Estevez said. "But a uniform in and of itself does not gain access to any facility."

Sarah Finnecum, director of the U.S. Army's supply and maintenance directorate, said soldiers are responsible for turning in gear they're issued--such as body armor vests and night-vision goggles--when they're no longer using it and to compensate the government for its cost if they don't. But as for their "personal items of clothing," she said she thought it would be "very hard to tell (soldiers) that you can't resell that item when they've purchased it with their own resources."

eBay, Craigslist weigh in
Controversy over reselling military equipment is hardly new. In recent years, the same subcommittee determined that the Defense Department itself was selling top-grade chemical protective suits and items that could be used to make a biological warfare laboratory to the public. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), the subcommittee's ranking member, said he was concerned that the military doesn't have a good enough system in place for keeping tabs on its inventory.

Charles Beardall, the Department of Defense's deputy inspector general for investigations, said his agency has been actively investigating such sales since the early 1990s, and such investigations compose 20 percent of its caseload.

But Gregory Kutz, who led the GAO's investigation, said he was troubled to find how "easy" it is now for anyone procure such equipment online, and he suggested e-commerce sites should be doing more to stop it.

"eBay prohibits sales of used cosmetics, while latest in military body armor is available to anybody with a credit card," he told the panel. "Our sodliers deserve better than to have their own technology used against them on the battlefield."

Most of the equipment the GAO purchased was stolen, Kutz said. One eBay seller--a U.S. Army soldier based in South Korea--is serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence after the GAO turned him over to the Army for selling mass quantities of meals-ready-to-eat illegally.

eBay's Cohen said he believes his company has "the most proactive tools" to flag and prevent such sales of any major ecommerce company, with more than 2,000 employees working around the world to prevent "all forms of illegal behavior" on its sites.

The company maintains a policy that prohibits sales of 60 items, including weapons and many classes of military items, and it works regularly with law enforcement and military investigators to develop keyword filters designed to detect listings that violate its policy, Cohen said. Last year, for instance, eBay reviewed more than 4,000 listings flagged by its body armor filters and removed about one fourth of them, determining the remaining flagged listings were false positives.

Craigslist's Buckmaster also defended his company's procedures, saying that because tens of millions of site viewers have the option to flag listings for deletion, his company actually has a stronger anti-fraud police force than any Web site "on Earth." He also noted that his 25-person company has no incentive to let sales of questionable goods remain on its site because it earns "absolutely nothing" in commission or otherwise from their sales.

Buckmaster went a step further, challenging Web sites that profit off of sales of military goods to donate 100 percent of any revenue related to those sales to a charity, "preferably one that provides aid to our military veterans."

The U.S. military says it has been steadily increasing its inventory of unmanned flying machines, such as the small, hand-launched Raven model seen here. It can be equipped with cameras that beam back views from above.

(Credit: U.S. Army/Staff Sgt. Raymond Piper)

WASHINGTON--The controversial surge in U.S. bodies to Iraq has dominated headlines in recent months, but the "unsung, unknown hero" isn't even human.

Or at least that's the assessment of Col. Donald Hazelwood, who runs the U.S. Army's unmanned aerial systems project office.

Speaking Friday at a confab here hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, Hazelwood said daily use of drones has "forever changed" the way soldiers see what's around corners, detect improvised explosive devices, and fend off enemies in Baghdad and beyond.

"It doesn't get any better that that, when soldiers tell you it's easy to operate, it's easy to train on, and it's saving lives," Hazelwood said.

Just before the surge, the U.S. Army bumped up the number of unmanned aircraft in those skies by 35 percent, Hazelwood said.

UAV use, of course, spans all of the military branches and continues to increase, officials said Friday. Overall, the Pentagon's inventory of unmanned aerial systems has leapt from about 200 in 2002 to nearly 6,000 in 2008, said Dyke Weatherington, who oversees an unmanned systems wing of the U.S. Department of Defense. For the 2008 fiscal year, the Defense Department has a $15 billion budget just for unmanned systems, and a supplemental $500 million from Congress may also be on the way.

Beyond combat uses, unmanned vehicles are also being "used to give life," said Jason Haines, a 19-year military veteran who has served as a lieutenant commander in Iraq.

On one hand, use of the drones "kept me and my men alive, that's for sure," he told conference attendees. "They kept us ahead of the game. There were no surprises to us."

Testing has begun on a new, high-endurance, weapon-toting UAV called the Sky Warrior, which is built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. The Army expects to begin using it next year.

(Credit: U.S. Army)

On the other hand, UAVs flying high above dangerous territories are also relaying tactical information that can help protect civilians, such as humanitarian assistance crews on the ground delivering relief supplies, Haines said. The former firefighter and paramedic said he also saw promise for use of UAVs by local police and fire crews and disaster relief crews in, say, hurricane-wrecked zones. Weather watchers also say the unmanned craft can be used to fly into hurricanes to take readings in place of the people-toting aircraft that now pull that duty.

As fond as the U.S. military is of touting the growing role unmanned vehicles play in battle, officials said some dramatic changes in the technology remain necessary.

One challenge is getting the various different breeds of robot to share data with one another. Right now, for instance, a drone flying in the sky may be able to beam data to computers at a command center, but it can't necessarily integrate data with, say, a ground-based robot.

Greater interoperability would permit soldiers to gather intelligence more easily from a number of different perspectives, rather than relying on one potentially limited source, said the Defense Department's Weatherington. It would also foster more efficient operations in the long run--after all, cost, airspace, and radio spectrum constraints mean the military can afford to add only so many new vehicles over time.

Another tough issue is making sure members of the rapidly multiplying drone population don't collide with one other--and with manned aircraft. Hazelwood said he was optimistic about the prospects for more military UAVs sharing airspace above the United States. The Army has already brought down its accident rates by 60 percent each year for the last three years, he said, so at that rate, "we ought to be able to fly in national airspace and convince the American public by 2012."

WASHINGTON--The Bush administration sought to deflect criticism Wednesday over a new policy that clears hurdles for certain companies in China to receive exports of American-made multigigaflop computers, lasers, and other "sensitive" technologies with potential military uses.

Under rules that took effect last summer, some companies in China are--or will be--permitted to bypass normal legal procedures for receiving exports of certain restricted hardware and software from the United States. That list includes certain chemicals that could be used to build weapons, telecommunications equipment designed to operate at very high and very low temperatures, and computers with processor performance speeds "exceeding 0.5 weighted teraflops."

Since the Cold War, the United States has limited export of certain so-called "dual use" products that could have both military and civilian applications. The new privilege--called "Validated End User" status--applies exclusively to companies in China. They must agree to submit to a "comprehensive" review process by numerous U.S. government agencies, both before and during their participation in the program, and have a record of using American technologies "responsibly." Five companies have landed that status so far.

At an event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation here on Wednesday, Commerce Department Undersecretary Mario Mancuso and an adviser defended the new policy as a key part of the United States' extremely complex relationship with China. The goal, Mancuso said, is to balance national security interests with economic ones: after all, China is quickly becoming one of the world's largest economies and the United States' biggest trading partner.

The VEU program is a wise move because it allows regulators more time to concentrate on whether to grant licenses to "riskier" companies, Mancuso said. It may also give other Chinese companies a "market-based incentive" to abide by U.S. export control laws in hopes of achieving that more liberated trade status, he added.

The latest approach, however, is drawing fire from critics who argue the Bush administration is being shortsighted and overly trusting. For instance, the Wisconsin Project, a nonprofit group focused on nuclear arms control, contended in a report released last month (PDF) that two of the VEU companies--Shanghai Hua Hong NEC Electronics Company and BHA Aerocomposite Parts Co.--shouldn't be on the list because of ties to the Chinese military and other government-owned operations.

Mancuso insisted that the companies named in the Wisconsin Project report were selected only after undergoing a "rigorous" analysis based on classified and publicly available information. He added that all of the companies selected must submit to periodic follow-up investigations, including on-site visits, by U.S. regulators and that their status can be revisited if problems arise.

Critics didn't buy those explanations. One of the prime concerns with exporting sensitive technologies to Chinese firms is that they will divert those ideas to the military, and the new policy won't prevent that from happening, said Peter Leitner, president of the pharmaceutical company MaxWell USA and a former senior trade advisor to the Secretary of Defense.

"The characterization of these companies as being safe is absurd," Leitner said during a panel discussion after Mancuso's speech. "They're embedded with government controlled entities who dictate the terms of trade. Government plays a huge role in directing trade, directing corporate activities, directing where technology goes, and will continue to do so in the indefinite future."

Those naysayers are living in the past, argued Mark Groombridge, a senior adviser to undersecretary Mancuso. Traditional export controls aren't as effective as they once were because of increasingly global "networks of production" and less restrictive export controls in other major industrial nations, Groombridge said.

Besides, the new Commerce Department rules may liberalize export requirements to the select VEU companies, but they actually create new licensing requirements for everyone else, Groombridge added. That's because categories of American high-tech products that previously escaped export control rules are now subject to them.

"To say there's no strategic thinking going on about China is just simply and factually inaccurate," Groombridge said.

John Tkacik, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, questioned whether the new policy ultimately serves American interests.

"One might wonder whether letting this kind of technology leak off to China does have the appropriate safeguards to be sure it doesn't get stolen and put together by a Chinese company," he said.

Ustream cofounders Brad Hunstable and John Ham as West Point cadets in 1998

(Credit: The U.S. Army)

To many Americans with family members serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the most wished-for holiday gift is simply a visit with their far-off loved ones.

Ustream.TV, a start-up that lets people stream live video to the Web, is planning to help military families connect through the Internet this holiday season.

The company has given Webcams to people who have family stationed in Iraq, so they can access the Ustream service and take part in a video chat.

Ustream, headquartered in Los Altos, Calif., has a strong military background. Co-founders John Ham and Brad Hunstable met each other while attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The former cadets reached the rank of captain before leaving the Army.

Frank Caufield, co-founder of heavyweight venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is an investor in the year-old company and is also a West Point grad.

Wesley Clark, a former four-star Army general, is a member of Ustream's advisory board.

Ham and Hunstable last February

(Credit: Ustream)

"Having served five years and being separated from my family for a year, I know what it's like to be away from home during the holidays," Ham told CNET News.com on Thursday. "Military families sacrifice so much so their loved ones can serve their country. We're doing what we can to make a difference."

Initially, Ustream intended to send Webcams to soldiers in Iraq as well as their families. But Army officials nixed the idea for security reasons, according to an Ustream spokeswoman.

Soldiers already equipped with a Webcam will be able to broadcast themselves to their families at the same time their families will be visible to them. Service members without cameras can still watch on their computer monitors and communicate with loved ones through instant message or telephone.

Remember when Farmer Brown would break out the 12-gauge loaded with rock salt to chase you out of his watermelon patch? Today he could take care of you and other varmints with this weaponized version of the self-stabilized unmanned mini-copter put out by Neural Robotics.

The AutoCopter uses patented "intelligent neural network-based flight control algorithms" for automated flight control, making it the easiest mini-unmanned helicopter to fly and the hardest to crash, according to an article in Defense Review.

Best of all, it's armed with the Auto Assault-12 Full-Auto Shotgun by Military Police Systems, an innovative double-ought dispenser that's pretty handy all on its own. Out of Piney Flats, Tenn., the AA-12 employs a system that reduces recoil by 90 percent, which explains why the helicopter doesn't go into an instant tailspin the second the gun is fired. Rate of fire is reportedly 300 rounds per minute out a 20-round drum.

That ought to keep you away from the sheep. Another aggie myth in the making.

It wasn't very long ago that open-source developers struggled to make the market believe that open source was secure, ready for prime-time adoption, etc. Now the debate has shifted to demonstrating just how widespread adoption is and and pointing to case studies of how to get the most from open source.

Enter the U.S. Department of Defense's Open IT Conference (December 11-12 in Washington, D.C.). The conference is a bit different from others, in that so much of the United States' security rides on open-source adoption, as Brigadier General Nickolas G. Justice notes:

Open-source software is part of the integrated network fabric which connects and enables our command and control system to work effectively, as people's lives depend on it. When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.

Some may not like this use of open source, but it's still an amazing demonstration of how mainstream open source has become.

The conference promises to be an eye-opener on many levels:

The next U.S. Air Force maverick may be talking to her plane instead of looking at its dash for updates.

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which the Air Force plans to roll out in 2008, will be the first U.S. fighter to respond to voice commands, the Air Force announced Wednesday.

F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

(Credit: Department of Defense/Joint Strike Fighter Program Office)

The Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate has been working on the idea for some time, trying out different systems from a variety of companies.

After years of testing, it now has a speech-recognition system that works from a microphone within a pilot's oxygen mask in spite of loud ambient noise in the cockpit.

The DynaSpeak speech recognition software the Air Force decided to go with was developed by SRI International in conjunction with Adacel Systems. The system, which ties in to the plane's onboard computer, will be used to give commands for both communication and navigation. The requested data will then come up in the pilot's helmet display.

The advantage of voice recognition is that pilots will be able to stay focused on maneuvering their planes and not will not have to pause that focus to flip switches or press buttons to retrieve information, according to the Air Force.

Unlike many speech-recognition programs, the DynaSpeak system for the military requires no learning curve on the part of the system for a particular person's voice. Any pilot flying the F-35 could begin using it immediately.

The system was first tested in flight simulators in which data was collected on which words were optimal for commands.

The Warfighter Interface Division of the Human Effectiveness Directorate is now testing the system in real planes and collecting data on its accuracy to make sure it's ready for operational tests, evaluation and implementation in 2008.