Robotic soldiers may lead from the front in a decade : DRDO

SOURCE: DNA

Director general of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and scientific adviser to defence minister, Avinash Chander, on Thursday announced that the DRDO has set a goal of developing a prototype of a robotic soldier that can work in groups and exchange information in the era of unconventional warfare.

Chander was in Pune to attend the first international robotics conference organised by the Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) of DRDO and Robotics Society of India. The four-day conference was inaugurated by R Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the government of India. S Sundresh, chief controller R&D from DRDO headquarters and Manjit Singh, president of the Robotics Society of India were present on the occasion.

Interacting with the media after the inaugural session, Chander said the DRDO is focusing on research in the field of robotics and is aiming at developing robotic soldiers, which can be used in unconventional warfare. Chander said, “Today we have developed a capability where a robot controlled by a man can cover a distance of 1 km to 1.5 km and can fire at a target. However, we are looking to reach the stage where a group of robotic soldiers will act together autonomously. We have set the aim to develop a prototype of group of robotic soldiers in the next 10 years, which can assist our forces.”

“We want to develop very highly autonomous robotic soldiers which can communicate with each other, form groups and work together. They should be able to differentiate between a threat and a non-threat and this prototype,” Chander said.

Chidambaram said, “The third industrial revolution is driven by the Internet and digital printing and robotics is going to play an important role in these fields.

“We want to create a grid for robotics where all the national knowledge research centres can be connected with fibre optical and information on robotic research can be transferred.”