From 48 hours to two hours: the Israeli robot that cleans tank engines

In the movie “Terminator” from 1984, robots were seen taking over the earth, emotionless machines that rebel against humans. Director James Cameron could not imagine then that this apocalypse would remain mainly on the screen, while in the real world the robots would enter our lives precisely as helpers, not as enemies.

Elon Musk already promises that in the coming year he will market Tesla’s first humanoid robot, one that will know how to operate a vacuum cleaner, fold laundry and even go for a walk with the dog. Autonomous cars are already moving on the streets of America, and now robots are also entering the military, not as a futuristic vision, but as a practical engineering solution to everyday problems.

In the IDF, it turns out, one of the biggest challenges is not only on the battlefield but also in the garage. Maintenance of heavy weapons, tanks and APCs, requires skilled personnel, heavy equipment and long working hours. Cleaning a tank engine, for example, is a complex, dirty and sometimes dangerous operation. Until recently, this required teams of soldiers, dedicated tools and 48 hours of intensive work to locate faults and clean the system. Now, using a new robotic system, the same operation is performed in only about two hours.

The mechanical octopus

The system developed by the Israeli company Ruby AI, looks almost like a creature from an animated film. Multiple robotic arms, a sort of mechanical octopus, penetrate into the tank engine, clean, wash, scan and perform operations that previously required a human hand. The robot operates autonomously, without the need for the presence of soldiers in a dangerous environment, and without exposure to chemical substances, oils and extreme heat. In the IDF, they are talking about tremendous savings in manpower and the budget, but no less than that about an operational advantage, returning an expensive weapon to activity in a much shorter time.

“We develop both the robotic arms themselves and their brains,” explains Ben Dov. “We developed a Physical AI core that knows how to learn elements of the physical world, understand what it sees and perform a precise action. It is not a sterile factory robot, but one that knows how to work in mud, dust, heat and cold.”

The system for cleaning tank and APC engines was born during the war following a request from the Technology and Maintenance Corps of the IDF who asked to examine whether civilian technologies could be converted to military missions. “The first requirement was to replace soldiers in a difficult and complex task, says Ben Dov. “Today the system is fully functional. An operation that took two days is carried out in two hours, without a single soldier near the engine.”

Beyond cleaning engines

But this is only the tip of the iceberg: the Ruby AI company has been developing robotic systems in the world for a long time, and the vision is much broader than cleaning engines. The company has developed robots for autonomous refueling, including a system that is already operating in the United Arab Emirates for the government oil company. This is the only robot in the world that performs full refueling without human contact, in an explosive environment and with strict safety standards.

“If a robot knows how to refuel, it also knows how to deal with dangerous substances,” says Ben Dov. “It opens the door to a whole world of military maintenance.” Among the developments in the pipeline are robots that will assist in changing the heavy wheels of tanks and bulldozers, a task that today requires enormous physical effort and is accompanied by the risk of injury. The robots are able to hold weights of over 100 kilos, perform the operation with the required precision and work alongside a soldier, not in his place but in the most dangerous places.

In the future, according to the company, it will be possible to see robots handling ammunition warehouses, testing ammunition autonomously, and performing inspections of weapons without human contact. There is also a more distant, but not imaginary, vision of robots loading heavy missiles into air defense systems, a physically difficult task currently performed by soldiers.

From the front to the treatment room

The world of military medicine also appears on the horizon, with the development of bionic arms with five fingers, which in the future can perform precise therapeutic actions, from physical therapy to working in dangerous environments such as areas affected by chemical or biological warfare agents where they do not want to send a person. Ben Dov emphasizes that the technology already exists, and the question is mainly regulatory and operational.

Will robots replace humans completely? According to Ben Dov, the answer is complex. “In five years, we will see a very significant share of the difficult physical operations performed by robots. Not because it is beautiful, but because there is not enough personnel, and the tasks are becoming more complex.” He cites the ability of physical AI to understand a real-world object and act on it as the holy grail of the field. “This is the future, and Elon Musk talks about it every time he is given a microphone.”

The IDF examines the developments carefully, but it is clear that the direction has been set. The robots are not coming to fight instead of the soldiers, but to relieve them of the burden, the risk and the menial work. If once we imagined machines taking over the world, today in the army we are talking about machines that return a tank to activity faster. The apocalypse, at least for now, seems much more practical.