BY GRETCHEN MURRAY
TRAVERSE CITY -- Paul Grayson has always balanced himself on the cutting edge of scientific technology.
Some of it he talks about, some is so classified he never discusses it.
The marine engineer spent his naval career as a ship designer, building, repairing and operating submarines that kept an eye on the Soviets during Cold War operations. Later he attended the Great Lakes Maritime Academy to convert his military ship operations license to civilian in order to work on the world's largest supertankers.
Grayson is a member of the naval reserve and keeps abreast of ongoing research. He still receives an occasional phone call from the Department of Defense asking for his input on projects.
"I worked on special projects for the DoD over the years," said Grayson, of Traverse City. "They break the project into small enough pieces that each of the pieces I work on is unclassified so I can talk to other engineers about it, but they'll never tell me what it's for. That's the secret."
One such call several years ago led to Grayson's involvement in advancing the development of driverless vehicles for the military. He's now looking for local help with the project.
Grayson's nonprofit organization, American Industrial Magic in Traverse City, is in the process of outfitting a vintage Army supply truck with computer technology to eliminate the driver. Grayson said such technology has the potential to save U.S. soldiers' lives in Iraq.
Members of the local Robot Club are involved, as are area sponsors, but Grayson wants to attract students on summer vacation, computer wizards and those who are mechanically inclined to the project, as well as anyone else who can help work on and exhibit the truck at various local events during the summer.
Volunteers also are needed to help in the technical library, sort donations, track inventory and clean up, he said.
"The autonomous vehicle technology was something the government has wanted for years," Grayson said. "Since World War II, Congress had been putting more and more research dollars into developing this technology through different contractors who kept telling them 'soon.'"
"Congress didn't know if it was a decline in the inventive spirit in the United States or whether it's greediness on the part of research companies. The obvious answer is that the system's broken," he said.
Grayson said the Department of Defense turned to its "weird science department," the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for a solution. DARPA, in turn, called Grayson for his opinion on how to advance the field of robotic technology.
The end result was the Grand Challenge races DARPA opened up to technological teams from around the country. Since 2004, research teams have been using artificial intelligence to race unmanned vehicles from point-to-point through the deserts of the Southwest, awarding a multimillion dollar purse to the winners who cross the finish line while adhering to a stringent rules.
Grayson said Congress wants the developing technology installed in all armed forces vehicles before 2015, but that's not soon enough for him.
Grayson hopes someday to enter the 1954 GMC M-215 Army supply truck the group is working on in the Grand Challenge races, but his passion lies in the potential he finds in existing guidance technology.
His group thinks the GPS-type technology that's now available in some farm machinery might provide an urgent solution for developing computer component systems that can be used to convert the Army's existing fleet of vehicles to unmanned. He believes it would save at least one soldier's life every day in Iraq.
While the project was started for the Armed Forces, it's biggest application will be use in civilian vehicles.
"The Department of Transportation knew this type of guidance technology was just over the horizon," Grayson said. "They did a study in 1997 and estimated that this technology applied to civilian vehicles would save 5,000 lives a month on U.S. roads and highways.
"We're looking at saving one soldier's life a day in a war zone like Iraq and compare that to 166 a day in the civilian world. There is significant dual use here," he said.
Right now American Industrial Magic has about 12 active volunteers. The group plans to display the vehicle they've nicknamed "Wendy Darling" during the Cherry Festival, the Harbor Days Parade in Elk Rapids and during Alpenfest in Gaylord.
"I think we can start saving soldiers' lives sooner than 2015. If anyone shows up, we can use them," Grayson said. "For every day's delay some 200 to 300 family, friends and acquaintances mourn the loss of each soldier killed. How would I explain my not feeling like working on this project to those soldiers' parents?"
Becoming a member of the AIM Team requires a commitment of two hours a week. To lean more, call Grayson, 946-0187 or 883-4463, or e-mail pgrayson@aimagic.org. To learn more about the project, visit http://aimagic.org.
