BEYNES (France), May 8 \u2014 France\u2019s armed forces are on schedule to develop battle-ready robots by 2040, according to participants in a test bringing together the military with engineers, researchers and defence contractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe hope to have something fairly evolved within three years, with the first ground robot capabilities ready to equip our forces,\u201d said the army\u2019s commander of future combat, General Bruno Baratz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the recent competition event over several weeks \u2014 the third such exercise since the armed forces set the 2040 target four years ago \u2014 robots fitted with legs, wheels, and treads navigated obstacles and evaded traps at a base west of Paris to test their ability to hold ground against enemy forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From surveillance to mine clearing, robots are \u201calready very useful for protecting our units,\u201d said General Tony Maffeis, the head of the army\u2019s technical branch, during the Collaboration-Man-Machine (CoHoMa) challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow we need to prove they can be more effective when they come into contact with an adversary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe robot must facilitate combat, not hold it back,\u201d Maffeis added, underscoring the challenges that still stand in the way of deploying robots into the field \u2014 especially when it comes to navigating rough terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A competition like this \u201callows us to get out of the lab and tackle a realistic mission,\u201d said Baptiste Lepelletier, one of the participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Robotics \u2018booming\u2019 in Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The French army has explored the use of ground robots since 2021, but the war in Ukraine, where drones \u2014 cheaper and more abundant \u2014 are reshaping warfare, has enormously accelerated their evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGround robotics is booming in Ukraine, but it\u2019s still complex and less developed, so it\u2019s important to explore what practical uses they could have,\u201d said army chief of staff General Pierre Schill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One problem is that they cannot operate effectively without aerial drones to guide them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n French defence firm Thales brought one robot that features a launch pad for a drone that scouts for obstacles and maps a route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The military said it has already incorporated some developments from two previous CoHoMa challenges but sees even bigger changes in the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But before they are used in combat, the first applications will be in logistics, with drone convoys or robotic mules carrying gear. \u2014 AF<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BEYNES (France), May 8 \u2014 France\u2019s armed forces are on schedule to develop battle-ready robots by 2040, according to participants in a test bringing together the military with engineers, researchers and defence contractors. \u201cWe hope to have something fairly evolved within three years, with the first ground robot capabilities ready to equip our forces,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,25],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-science-it-ai-military-war","tag-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}