Not all of the military’s robot research goes into creating unfeeling killing machines. Some of them are here to heal, like the Navy’s plan to create a medical robot to treat troops carried by drones.

The Office of Naval Research recently announced that it’s looking to build a prototype medical robot it calls the Autonomous Critical Care System. ACCS’ first job would be monitoring critical patients’ vital signs. Eventually, though, the Navy wants its bot to provide fluid, drugs, anaesthesia, suction, oxygen and help regulate a patient’s temperature.

The Navy envisions its medic-bot actually diagnosing and managing a number of “medically complex, life-threatening clinical events” for more than six hours — to be done either autonomously or with the assistance of a human caregiver. To do some of that critical management, ACCS would come equipped with its own drug kit, including “epinephrine, phenylephrine, dopamine, vasopressin, paralytics” among others.

Both the military and civilian sectors have been looking into robotic medical care for a while. Darpa, the military’s bleeding edge technologists, recently teamed up with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research into “robotic applications to surgery,” as well as “computerized therapist personalities.”

The ACCS will be a tiny little bot. The Navy wants it to be 30 pounds, max, and should be able to fit into helicopters easily.

But the Navy doesn’t just want a robo-doc. It’s also looking for an unmanned ambulance — one that flies, preferably. The Office of Naval Research says it expects that “unmanned ground or air vehicles” will be available to carry wounded troops or disaster victims in the future and that their medic-bot will “validate effective patient monitoring and control” on them while in transit.

It’s not that far-fetched of an idea. The Israelis have been working on a robotic ambulance for years. In this country, prototype cargo-carrying drones are already a reality. In the air, there’s the K-MAX helicopter drone which can carry 6,000 pounds and on the ground there’s BigDog, the robotic pack mule able to haul up to 300 pounds. The Air Force and Marine Corps already are working getting their own airborne cargo drones and the Navy wants to build software that would allow the cargo-bots to ferry the wounded by voice command, without the aid of pilots.

Photo: Defense.gov

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