As U.S. military forces continue to work to save lives and money through robot recruits, the demand for increasingly sophisticated robotic technologies is soaring. The 2011 Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference and Exhibition has been announced by the National Defense Industrial Association also known as NDIA. The conference will be held from March 22-24, 2011 in Orlando.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Ground Robotics Enterprise is supporting NDIA’s Ground Robotic Conference. Developers, warfighters, and homeland security users will be brought together by the conference. Robotics creators’ and manufacturers’ knowledge of user requirements will be therefore improved.

The potential of robotics to improve efficiency will be the key feature of this year’s conference. Titled Saving Lives, Saving $ – Are Robot Recruits the Answer?” the conference will also look at the potential of robotics in terms of better protection and capabilities to warfighters and first responders.

The Vice Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff at USMC, Gen James Cartwright, will be one of the featured speakers at the conference. He will be joined by the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, OSD, Frank Kendall and Deputy Director of OSD Land Warfare & Munitions, Jose Gonzalez.

Other featured speakers include Dr. Jim Overholt who is a Senior Research Scientist-Robotics, Tank and Automotive Research Center, U.S. Army and Dr. Barry Farmer who is the Chief Scientist of Materials & Manufacturing at Air Force Research Laboratory (News - Alert) for U.S. Air Force.

The conference will also see Mr. George Solhan, Mr. Byron Brezina, Dr. Gill Pratt and Dr. Robin Murphy as the other featured speakers. Mr. Solhan is the Deputy Chief of Naval Research, Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare & Combating Terrorism Science & Technology at USMC. He is also the Director of the Marine Corps Science and Technology at Office Of Naval Research Center.

While Mr. Brezina is from the Robotics Technologist Acquisition & Technology Department Naval EOD Technology Division, U.S. Navy; Dr. Pratt is the Program Manager for Defense Sciences Office, DARPA. Dr. Murphy is the Director of Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, Texas A&M University.