Making History, Kind Of

In July 2016, the Dallas Police used a robot to kill a gunman which had already killed two police officers and injured others (Sidner & Simon, 2016).  The gunman was in a position which did not allow for police officers to get a direct shot in order to neutralize him via traditional means.  The police chief gave instructions for an unconventional plan to be developed and the use of a bomb disposal robot was conceived.  The robot delivered a pound of explosives within a deadly radius of the shooter and detonated, killing the gunman.  The robot was an early version of the Remotec F5, which is part of the now Northrop Grumman Andros line of robots (Orf, 2016).  This line of robots now includes the FX, Titus, HD series, and the F5’s newest version, the F6B (Northrop Grumman, 2017).  These vehicles are used mostly in bomb disposal, vehicle inspection, and other military and police missions.  Using robot to kill a human being is not something new to history, but being used by the police to neutralize an active shooter is.  Using the robot in a manner which it was not intended goes to show how well the control station works in concert with the vehicle and its equipment. 

  (Northrop Grumman, 2017)

The Ground Control Station

The capabilities of the control station are a direct correlation with the capabilities of the vehicle.  A simple remote-control toy car is capable of moving forwards and backwards while turning left and right.  The control station for this only needs the ability to manipulate these abilities.  There is no data being collected for the operator to see.  There are no sensors on the car to collect any data.  On the other end of the ground vehicle spectrum, there are unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) like the Andros series which have the same capabilities as the toy car plus an almost countless number of other capabilities requiring the attention or use of the operator.  The F6B, for instance, has gripper arm capable of multiple axis of movement to lift up to 135 lbs (Northrop Grumman, 2017).  On top of this are multiple cameras and sensors for investigating and manipulating suspect objects.  In order to control all of these features, the control station requires multiple interfaces, each for a different part of the UGV.  To accomplish this, Northrop Grumman has developed a control station to be used with its entire Andros line of robots.  The operator control unit comes equipped with a 15-inch LCD monitor, picture-in-picture capability, joystick controls, as well as audio/video input and output options for recording and broadcasting (Northrop Grumman, 2017).  This allows for all of the data streaming from the Andros robots to be displayed in a manner which allows the operator to utilize the vehicle efficiently enough to accomplish not just the intended mission, but something “outside the box.”  Of course, a larger control station with larger monitors would be useful, however, part of the considerations for the control station has to be portability.  There has to be a happy medium between data presentation and size of station. 

Recommendations

            When the F65 was used to neutralize the shooter in Houston it was a very dynamic, changing situation.  There was time, however, to bring in the robot and set up the control station.  Something which I would have recommended that Northrop Grumman actually took into consideration would be a more portable control station.  Smaller size would mean less efficient data presentation, but it would mean something less than the 38 lb standard station (Northrop Grumman, 2017).  The TAC-X only has an 8.4-inch display, but it does have the ability to control the robot from a very mobile, X-box style controller (Northrop Grumman, 2017).  This is a controller able to go into a tactical environment where the operator will have a better situational awareness. 

 (Northrop Grumman, 2017)

References

Northrop Grumman. (2017, November 24). F6B - The Industry's Most Versatile Platform. Retrieved from Northrop Grumman: http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/Remotec/Products/Pages/F6ASpecs.aspx

Orf, D. (2016, July 10). Dallas Police Reveal Robot Used to Kill Suspect in Cop Shooting. Retrieved from Gizmodo: https://gizmodo.com/dallas-police-reveal-robot-used-to-kill-suspect-in-cop-1783413331

Sidner, S., & Simon, M. (2016, July 12). How robot, explosives took out Dallas sniper in unprecedented way. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/us/dallas-police-robot-c4-explosives/index.html