A top official of the Department of Defence said that despite the army using robots in combat for over a decade it had to develop a sound set of operational rules and doctrine for their use in the future.
Speaking at the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s conference in Washington D.C. on August 16, 2011 Maj. Gen. Walter Davis, deputy director of the Capabilities Integration Center at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, said that the army was still working out its training and doctrine for using robots in combat. He added that key to this are the service’s modernization plans that call for a networked and highly automated force.
Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch who is currently commanding general of the Army's Installation Command said that there were three primary uses of unmanned systems – to improve surveillance, to reduce the workload and to improve survivability on the battlefield.
Lt Gen Rick Lynch was the former commanding general of Fort Hood, Texas, and the Army’s 3rd Armoured Corps, when he delivered an impassioned speech at the same conference in Washington, D.C., in 2009. There he said that 8-% of lives lost under his command in combat in Iraq could have been saved if the right robots had been in place.
Two years later the General gave the same impassioned speech saying that while some progress had been made it was far from enough. He did not consider remote controlled robots enough as he said that he wanted a system that had a certain degree of autonomy. The main thing these robots can do is save lives by taking soldiers out of harm's way, he said.