Army Gears Up to Use Northrop Robot

Hoping to reduce human casualties in Iraq, the Army is preparing to use unmanned robotic ground vehicles built by Northrop Grumman Corp. for use in surveillance and border-security missions, the company said Monday.

It would be the first use of autonomous ground vehicles in a combat zone, the Century City-based defense contractor said.

The company’s Tactical Amphibious Ground Support vehicle weighs 3,400 pounds, can reach a speed of 25 miles per hour and is about the size of a compact car, with a flatbed top and tank-like treads that can be interchanged with tires.

“The robot will be deployed in the fourth quarter” in Iraq, although it has not yet been determined how many vehicles will be used, said Paul Cabellon, a spokesman for Northrop’s Electronic Systems unit in Baltimore. The unit’s Remotec Inc. division in Clinton, Tenn., is assembling the vehicles, he added.

Northrop’s vehicle has onboard sensors for obstacle detection, and when it can’t find its way around something, it calls for human assistance via a local “navigation station,” Northrop said.

The Army already uses some robots in Iraq and Afghanistan for dismantling bombs, including IRobot Corp.’s PackBot. They are not autonomous, however, and must be remotely controlled.

There has been growing interest at the Pentagon in recent years for using both unmanned aerial and ground vehicles to keep more troops out of harm’s way, said Paul Nisbet, defense analyst at JSA Research Inc. in Newport, R.I.

Roadside attacks on convoys with mines and improvised explosives are the leading cause of death in Iraq, where 1,864 U.S. troops have been killed in the last 2 1/2 years.

The ground vehicles, in particular, “could certainly take the place of a lot of men and women who would otherwise be necessary” to secure U.S. patrols, Nisbet said.

Other companies, such as General Dynamics Corp., also are working on ground robots for military use.

But Nisbet cautioned that the Northrop robots’ effectiveness still had to be tested, especially in difficult terrain.

The tactical amphibious vehicle can travel autonomously between set points on a path that’s punched into a computer map by a nearby soldier, the company said. If it meets an obstacle, it can call for help from the operator, who can also take over full manual control of the vehicle.

The vehicle, powered by a diesel-electric engine, also can be equipped with weapons, Cabellon said. Each vehicle costs about $225,000, before the cost of communications and navigations equipment, he said.

Northrop’s shares rose 62 cents to $56.32.

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Bloomberg News was used in compiling this report.