The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boston University researchers more than $7 million to study how robots can assume the jobs of humans who operate military vehicles.
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research announced its plan April 18 to award $60 million — approximately $7.5 million for BU — in the next five years to 10 research teams to better understand developing research in science and engineering disciplines.
The College of Engineering team will collaborate with other schools — among them Princeton University, the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University of Washington — to pursue the study of humans working with machines, particularly robots, and how it will change the face of who is behind operating military machinery.
The military plans to replace one third of its human labor in air, land and sea vehicles with robots by 2015, which makes the research endeavor particularly relevant, said aerodynamic and mechanical engineering chairman principal investigator John Baillieul, who has researched how such a partnership will affect humans and their roles in operating machinery.
“That’s why [the Air Force is] interested in understanding how to operate in mixed teams with humans and robots,” he said. “People are accustomed to being in charge at a more detailed level. Now, they’re playing more of a supervisory role than in the past.”
Many people may feel uncertain about how the research will change their increasing dependency on technology, Baillieul said.
“The overarching question is, ‘What are the ways in which people interact with a machine?'” he said. “What can they be, and what should they be?”
As machines that can work with each other are increasingly introduced into the workforce, people must question if their jobs can be replaced, Baillieul said.
“All around us, machines are becoming more and more capable of doing tasks humans have typically done,” he said.
一些雷克萨斯和梅塞德斯-奔驰车型已经萤火虫e automatic sensors that prevent the cars from colliding with objects when a driver tries to accelerate, Baillieul said.
“Technology has gotten to the point where it can control a lot of the car’s motion,” he said. “That can and should be taken over by machines.”
Although human and robot research is becoming less of a novelty concept in the military sector, the research will soon affect the public within the next 10 years as more people demand the technology, said engineering professor Sean Andersson.
The grant is provided by the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, a multi-agency Defense Department program that works with research teams and combines traditional science and engineering disciplines, said AFOSR Chief of Technical Communications Vickie Stein.
Along with Baillieul, electrical and computer engineering professor David Castañon and some graduate students will contribute work on the project.
“The research efforts are in Department of Defense areas of interest,” Stein said in an email. “[They] may accelerate research technology transitions through the program and through the interdisciplinary teams.”
Staff reporter Hannah Lawrence contributed reporting for this article.
