Mares 1

Justin Mares
Mrs. Jones
College Prep
11 December, 2015
G.R.M.S. ( Global Robotic-deployment Military System)
Abstract
Leon Kass, a well known, world renowned scientist at Harvard University stated,
technological innovation is indeed important to economic growth and the enhancement of
human possibilities ("Innovation"). Kass claims without technological advancements and
changes there cannot be economic growth or further improvement in the quality of human
potential. Can the idea of furthering humanity be incorporated in the military? Is there a way to
end mental, emotional, and physical pain of soldiers in the military? Is it realistic to expect life
enhancing opportunities and improved quality of life for soldiers rather than expecting them to
live in fear of losing their lives? A robotic military helps alleviate the stresses and pressures
resulting from military life. Currently soldiers returning home from service battle multiple
wounds far too deep and intense to heal. With the robotic military, soldiers no longer have to
battle for their lives, or wrestle with their inner demons. The innovation will provide many new
jobs for soldiers returning home. Soldiers will go back for an education in either computer
sciences or engineering to develop the robots. Marketing will be done through press releases, T.V
and radio ads, etc because of their effectiveness in persuading of the public. G.R.M.S. requires
roughly $30.7 billion to get started. With the G.R.M.S. in place, a new future awaits, a future of
new hope, and new life.
Need and Explanation

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An autonomous robotic military, seen once as science fiction, is now becoming a reality
with the changes in warfare and resulting advancements in technology. War affects every person
on the planet. More so, war permanently affects soldiers through mental and emotional torment,
personal destruction, and emanate death. Soldiers and veterans daily face critically urgent issues
including death, PTSD, drug abuse, and other various health problems.
Since the War on Terror began there have been over 6,000 deaths, and in all of the United
States history in war there have been more than 1.1 million casualties (Hickey and Santhanam).
Many soldiers fight their greatest battle not in the war zones, but upon their arrival home.
According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs 11-20 (out of 100) soldiers that return home
suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a severe mental health disorder
where individuals experience anxiety, nightmares, and or flashbacks of a previously traumatic
event (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs). Everyday in the United states 22 veterans commit
suicide which results in over 8,000 deaths a year (Alarcon, Nefi). In extreme cases soldiers abuse
prescription and or illicit drugs. There are approximately 3.9% soldiers who abuse drugs upon
their return home. Drug use ranges from simple over the counter drugs like aspirin to heavy
narcotics and sedatives (DrugFacts). Currently, 970,000 veterans are disabled because of lost
limbs but also third degree burns, spinal cord problems, loss of hearing and vision, paralysis, and
nerve damage ("US & Allied Wounded").
Society should care about the wounded and deceased soldiers because they sacrificially
put their lives on the line to protect America and the citizens thereof. It's the responsibility as a
nation to take care of the wounded and to try and prevent soldiers from suicide, drug use, getting
PTSD, and the other health issues. As for the deceased, society should pay tribute to those lost in
the line of duty and give their families support they need to get through challenging times. The

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benefits of an autonomous robotic military is it would stimulate the economy by providing more
higher paying jobs for individuals making the robots. Additionally, an autonomous military
provides quick terminal strikes on enemies, and is a safer alternative to combat.
Description of Innovation
Global-Deployment Robotic Military System (G.R.M.S.) is a team of highly specialized
military engineers and researchers that work to provide robotic systems to fight the U.S wars.
Our goal is to implement a fully autonomous robotic military in order to alleviate human soldiers
from physical and mental destruction. Many robots will be used in unison to combat enemies on
foreign grounds.
The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter is a heavy duty cargo plane that carries over 480,429
pounds and has over 240 hours of flight time (Hanson, Mary). The Dreamlifter needs some
upgrades in which our team will put in place an autopilot system. The plane will also be
equipped with programing to communicate with the other robots. The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter
carries fuel, repair supplies, and additional robots needed on the battlefield. The MQ-9 Reaper is
a small specialized aircraft designed for surveillance, and carrying out airstrikes on enemies.
Some specific specs on the MQ-9 Reaper is that it contains advanced targeting equipment,
hellfire missiles, and at its fastest reaches 240mph (United States Air Force). The MQ-1B
Predator is similar in many ways to the MQ-9 Reaper because it too is a small aircraft that
surveys, commences through airstrikes. The main differences between the Reaper and Predator is
that the Predator is heavier, slightly slower, and has two releasable missiles. The MQ-1B
predator has hellfire missiles which are laser guided for maximum efficiency (United States Air
Force). Both the Predator and the Reaper will be able to carry the smaller robotic operating
systems and will be able to release them in the different warzone.

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Smaller robotic operating systems include the Tiny Trooper, Sand Flea, RiSE, and the
RHex. The Tiny Trooper is the current project being tested here at G.R.M.S. The Tiny Trooper
will serve as a scouter, can attack in small areas, and can deliver small explosives. The Sand Flea
has the ability to jump buildings eight meters in height. The Sand Flea is 11 lbs, has a battery life
of two hours ("Sand Flea"). The main purpose RiSE robot is to scout grounds, climbing up
buildings, and can get into compact locations to deliver small explosives. The specs of the RiSE
robot is that it has micro claws to climb up walls, is fast, and has the ability to communicate with
other ground units (Boston Dynamics). Finally, theres the RHex which scouts grounds,
functions in all terrain, and delivers explosives on enemy lines (Rhex). The RHex will need to
have new motors replaced so it will be able to travel at higher speeds and execute tasks quicker.
All the robots will be able to communicate with one another to carry out tasks to take out
enemy threats. Most of the robots are compact and can fit into small locations with ease. An
autonomous military is the best solution to ending soldier deaths, and mental, physical, and
emotional destruction.
Implementation
G.R.M.S. will be a long process to implement and deploy the robots. G.R.M.S. will be
developed by working with specially trained military engineers to oversee manufacture, design,
and help fix the robots. G.R.M.S. will slowly be implemented into the battlefield by sending in a
unit (group of robotic military systems) to slowly replace squadrons of soldiers. Soldiers will be
alleviated of their duties in the warzones and shortly after their arrival home they will be offered
work in factories. There will be multiple factories throughout the country in places like
California, Hawaii, and Florida with the command center located in the Pentagon in Virginia.
The pentagon holds the DOD (Department of Defense) which houses the operations of

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Homeland Security and Homeland Defense. Furthermore, they are in charge of protecting the
U.S territory and overseas military operations (DOD 101 Introductory Overview of the
Department of Defense). Returning soldiers will still be employed if they chose to work in the
manufacturing of the robots. The ex-soldiers will need additional training in computer sciences
and/ or engineering. The benefit for soldiers working in the factories is that they will be working
higher paying jobs. The average soldier makes around $25-50,000 dollars a year whereas a
military engineer makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $75-90,000 dollars a year ("Average
Salary for U.S. Army Employees). The purpose of sending in robotic units one at a time is to
test their efficiency in real world situations outside of a military research facility to see their
effectiveness in targeting enemies.
Once progress is seen with the deployment of the robotic systems there will then be full
integration of robots on the battlefield with all human soldiers returned home. The military will
not be run solely by the robots themselves. There will be a command room containing generals
that will be equipped with command codes to activate and deploy the robots anywhere in the
world in a matter of hours. The generals main purpose in the control room is to serve as assisted
control so the robots are never fully in control of missions and other tasks. Touch screen tables
will be used for the deployment and to manage the functioning of robotic systems based on the
tasks at hand. There will always be at least five generals in charge of a unit at a time being that
there are approximately 306,024 robots to a unit. To start G.R.M.S. would have only around ten
units but will eventually grow larger. The jobs will remain the same for the military with roughly
1 million employees (Hickey and Santhanam).
Marketing the innovation will not be challenging because many current techniques have
proven to be very effective. Successful military marketing techniques have included television

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commercials, radio commercials, and magazine ads. Military advertisements are family centered
to show families protected by the military are happier ("Military Advertising and Recruiting"). In
the commercials and advertisements we will show that families can now truly be happy and at
ease because troops are no longer suffering. An autonomous military will show that just because
soldiers are no longer deployed in war zones families will still being protected. Also information
about the autonomous military will be released on both our website and the militarys explaining
basic details. Between commercials, ads, and website marketing these tactics will attract the
media to further exploit the new military to the general public. The training and education that
will be necessary for the implementation of the innovation is tech school with an engineering
degree or a degree in computer sciences. Generals will need to have some additional training in
computer sciences to work the command center.
Potential Obstacles
G.R.M.S. has been in the process of finding potential setbacks and limitations in the
design of deploying a fully autonomous military. The major setbacks that G.R.M.S. has
discovered are support from Congress, robot reliance, intelligence, and keeping the robots out of
enemy hands.
Congress is an incredibly complex and time consuming in order to get a new bill passed
to change a system of the government. On an average the process for passing a bill such as an
autonomous military can take a minimum of eight years ("How Congress Works). The support
for implementing the autonomous robotic military must be addressed in a legal fashion;
unfortunately, support from Congress is an unavoidable and is a mandatory precaution before
any robots can be deployed.

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At times technology can be unpredictable and unreliable which can lead to many people
being concerned with the reliability of the robots. Malfunction has been seen in medical robots
and has injured almost 1,400 people, killed nearly 145 patients, and malfunctioned over 8,000
times (Thomson). Although, G.R.M.S. will not be implementing medical robots in the
autonomous military the argument is still valid. The main way to solve the issue of
malfunctioning is to apply a master control function in all robotic systems that overrides any
other program. The master control function will tell the robots to return to the nearest
Dreamlifter to be brought back to a factory for repair.
Another concern is the intelligence of the robots to decipher between an innocent citizen
and an enemy threat. In many Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq
militants are closely intertwined into crowds of citizens. The programing and assisted control
completely take care of the problem of depicting a threat versus civilian in a crowd. When going
the robots go on missions they will already have specific targets with images of the threat
programed into the system. Meaning a robot has one job to eliminate the targets and only the
target. Additionally, the generals in the control room will be overlooking each and every mission
to make sure the robots fulfil their purpose on the battlefield. The robots will never be fully in
control overseas meaning there are always eyes monitoring the missions taking place.
Finally, the last potential obstacle is keeping the robotic equipment out of the enemys
hands. There has been many reportings of terrorist groups such as ISIS who have stolen military
tactical gear from the United States. ISIS has over $1 billion dollars of the United States military
property. In 2014 ISIS took ownership of 2,300 U.S Humvee vehicles and were ultimately used
in a bombing against U.S troops in Baghdad, Afghanistan (Young). Due to the fact that military
equipment is easily stolen every robot will be installed with a kill switch. Kill switches will be

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manually activated by generals in the control room and will thereby activate an automatic selfdestruction in detained robots.
Budget
Which is more expensive: cold hard steel or flesh and blood? Considering the fact that
G.R.M.S. will be working directly with the military, the advertisement cost will remain similar to
the current spending. Every year the military spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $667
million on various campaigns. The advertising to promote the robots will be through television,
radio, newspaper, magazine, internet, mail, and tour advertising (Thompson). All of these
approaches work collectively to educate and persuade an audience to support different aspects of
military functionality. A public press release will kick off the campaign as the first disclosure for
the robotic military system released. Typically press releases cost any where from $500 to more
than $5,000 dollars depending on the campaign ("How Much Does It Cost to Send a Press
Release? - Alaniz Marketing"). Even though marketing appears to be just another expense item
on a cost-analysis report, media exposure is critical to product support.
There are many large-scale budgeting items that need to be considered in the G.R.M.S.
innovation design. The most expensive, large scale budgeting items needed for G.R.M.S.
functioning is robotic development. The robotic system production costs range from $300.00 to
over $220 million per individual robot.

Item

Price (per item)

Quantity

Total cost (for item

listed)

Predator drone

$20 million

150

No added cost.
Currently in use.

Reaper drone

$62.2 million

93

No added cost.
Currently in use.

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Sandflea robot

$5,000

1,000,000

$5 billion

RiSE robot

$5,000

60,000

$300 million

Rhex robot

$2,000

1,000,000

$2 billion

Tiny Trooper

$300

1,000,000

$300 million

Dreamlifter

$301 million

10

$3.01 billion

Unit Repair

$100 million

$100 million

Weapons/Explosives

$100 million

$100 million

Advertising

$667 million

$667 million

Total cost

$37.7 billion

("U.S. Air Force")

("U.S. Air Force")
("Sand Flea")
(Rhex)
("Boeing 747 Dreamlifter")
(Thompson)
While $37.7 billion dollars may seem like a sizable investment, in all actuality its not.
The overall design, production and implementation costs of G.R.M.S. is significantly less than
the militarys current annual defense budget spending, which is around $619 billion dollars
(Walker). Furthermore, the autonomous robotic military will last up to ten to fifteen years
undamaged. The autonomous military will be more cost effective than the current U.S military.
The autonomous military will promote economic growth, creating more high paying, safer jobs
for military employees. Currently, the average United States soldier makes between $ 22,000$60,000 dollars a year. With the G.R.M.S. need for skilled engineers and computer technicians,
there will be increased training and subsequent salary increases for former soldiers. The

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engineers and technicians,all of which are existing military personnel, will still be employed and
will receive higher paying jobs at $90,000-$128,000 a year (Average Salary for U.S. Army
Employees).
Small-scale budgeting items will include placing touchscreen computer tables into the
control room. The touch screen tables needed cost around $12,950 per table, with the Pentagon
based control room requiring at least fifty tables (Ridden). The total cost for the tables will be
$647,500.
Building a prototype will be a necessity for the G.R.M.S. to gain funding and support.
The total cost of the prototypes will be slightly above $220 million dollars. Given that the U.S
military already has access to the Predator and Reaper drones, theyre not included in the
prototype cost. The prototype will include the Sandflea, the Rhex, the RiSE, and the Dreamlifter.

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