Design This Day | Episode 15

When design enters the battlefield.

Robert Walker joins Teague Futurist Devin Liddell to talk about bringing design to the battlefield, applying lessons from automotive to tactical vehicles, and designing around the people using them. Robert is the VP and Head of Design and Engineering at Detroit Defense. He previously spent more than two decades in automotive, leading design for vehicles at Ford and GM.

Robert Walker:
I think it's a very long way off to say that there's a human-less battlefield. I think for me, the human intelligence, and I'm learning every day, people who have been in battle, 5, 6, 10 tours of battle that people that I work with, their knowledge is unbelievable. And I don't think we can just feed the machines that knowledge. I think there'll be less humans in the loop, but I don't see a day, at least not tomorrow, where there's human-less battle because of human intelligence, which we still need.

Devin Liddell:
Welcome to Design This Day, a podcast about the future, the futures we want and the people working right now to make those futures real. I'm your host Devin Liddell. I'm a futurist at Teague. I spend a lot of my time thinking about the gap between present challenges and future solutions. Today, I'm speaking with Robert Walker, VP and head of design and engineering at Detroit Defense. Before shifting into the defense world, Robert spent over two decades in the automotive industry, leading design for some of Ford and GM's most iconic vehicles. Now, he's applying that experience to the radically different challenge of designing tactical vehicles for military use. It's a dramatic shift and one that raises big questions about how design adapts when the stakes are life and death. Robert and I started our conversation by revisiting his first few days on the job at Detroit Defense. What was your first day or your first week like at Detroit Defense? I mean, after three decades in automotive, it had to have been a little bit different, right?

Robert Walker:
Detroit Defense when I walked in had no design departments, so this is something I'm building.

Devin Liddell:
It's like you're a designer one?

Robert Walker:
Yes, in an extremely exciting way, it's in the startup phase and we'll be hiring and all of that. So I came into a engineering group and there were acronyms in automotive, which after 30 years, I thought I knew all of them and I still didn't. And so you can imagine in 90 days learning a whole new book of acronyms, it's unbelievable.

Devin Liddell:
I can only imagine.

Robert Walker:
And just also the language of defense, sir and ma'am, is still used even in the office when you're addressing different ranks. Again, it's a whole new world for me. So I would say going back to my first week, I saw a lot of engineering. I saw a lot of prototypes. I went to our local army arsenal and saw these vehicles, and I would say scale was pretty incredible. When you're standing next to some of these real tactical vehicles, they're huge and they're big and they're matte finished, and they're just these awe-inspiring vehicles. And I tried on communications helmets that soldiers wear and drove the Humvee. So it was quite a week.

Devin Liddell:
When you were looking at prototypes, were there any things that you sort of immediately thought to yourself like, "Oh, I know how that's going to look or work or be different three months from now after I've had more time to get going?"

Robert Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. And that went down to PowerPoints and presentations and everything because the design lens is everything. Every single thing in the office, the pens we use, I have an opinion on, so I have to stop. It goes home to, and my wife, it's like design is every element of my life. I'm looking and observing and thinking, "Wow, if that button just was over here, or if that radius or how does this fit and finish happen?" So yes, I saw many things that I knew I could have a positive impact on.

Devin Liddell:
Nice. Okay. I love it.

Robert Walker:
Yes, but that's again why I was hired, so it's good. It's good.

Devin Liddell:
Totally. For me, it brings up some memories. Like I took my first design job, I consider myself as a design strategist. I've always wanted to be around designers, of course. I do have a vivid memory of in my first design company I ever worked in, I think it was on my second or third day, me and a bunch of designers went to the movies just straightforward, and the movie ended and I thought, "Oh, well, now, we'll discuss the movie." And no, it actually jumped into a big discussion about the type used in the credits.

Robert Walker:
Yes, exactly.

Devin Liddell:
And it's like, "Oh, okay, I get it now. This is how they're wired."

Robert Walker:
We often say that design, it's a curse disease, what have you, in a positive way, right? But I remember in automotive, we had to know when to say when, when to stop, when is it done? A designer's file system on their computer or the file is always final, final, final, final. That's always the joke, right? Version 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Devin Liddell:
Right, exactly. Robert isn't just adjusting typefaces and changing the type of pins in the office. He's bringing a design mindset into an environment where that way of thinking hasn't always been prioritized, but in defense, design has real consequences. It can mean the difference between a successful mission and serious injury or worse. And some of the most critical changes don't even require new technology. They come from paying attention to what people actually need in the field.

Robert Walker:
A great example is a Humvee, if you know the big military vehicle, and I've driven one in my first 90 days, it does not have a backup camera, a rear view camera. Most modern cars do. And if you've had a car with it and then gone back to one without, it's extraordinarily-

Devin Liddell:
Jarring.

Robert Walker:
... challenging. Yes, soldiers were getting hurt very badly. So you would have to have a soldier get out and signal, hand signals and try to move the vehicle that way. And this is the year 2025, a modern day consumer vehicle, commercial vehicle. Most have backup cameras, but someone in the harshest of conditions who at those moments do not want to leave the safety of a Humvee to guide directions. You can imagine. So that's an example of tech that's drastically needed from a commercial element that's not in the defense world.

This is the year 2025... Most [consumer vehicles] have backup cameras, but someone in the harshest of conditions... does not want to leave the safety of a Humvee to guide directions.

Devin Liddell:
And the automotive world is not Robert's only source of inspiration. Just a few months into the new job, he is already finding different and perhaps surprising ways to put himself in the shoes of the modern war fighter.

Robert Walker:
I lead the software team here at Detroit Defense, and funny enough, many of them are gamers and they're in that slightly older, mid-20s demographic and heavy gamers. And I'm actually learning from them that gaming really drives a lot of their world view, if you will.

Devin Liddell:
Right. I know these people.

Robert Walker:
Right. And yeah, from the headsets they wear, the chairs, the home setup, it's really a dynamic that I'm learning. But yet, my point is we're also thinking about that as we design war fighter systems, helmets, comm systems, we get into things such as haptics or things that feedback. That's not a surface design piece, but it's there and it's very important. If you're in a battlefield and there's no communications, but you need to speak or connect with another soldier, how can you do that? And you can't see them, you can't hear them. So haptics is something I'm really diving into and then all comes from gaming.

Devin Liddell:
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, haptics is a huge part of the game experience, even in non warfare simulation games. I mean, if you're even a driving game, haptic, you steer off into the dirt road and you know it because...

Robert Walker:
Well, even back to the car example, if you're backing up with your rear view camera, in some cars, your seat, if you're getting too close to that tree, your seat on that side of the car will actually buzz, like if it's right or left. And so that gives you like, "Oh, wow, I'm going to hit something." So there's the visual and the haptics and the sound. So there's three levels of safety there. And those are the kind of, again, commercial or civilian systems that we're looking at very closely and trying to implement into defense systems.

Devin Liddell:
You mentioned earlier that there'd be scenarios where warfighters would be injured, actually just simple act of backing up a Humvee, right?

Robert Walker:
Yes. Yes.

Devin Liddell:
So I'm curious from your vantage point, are there particular metrics or aspirations on your part where you think to yourself, if I project where I'm two years down the road, three years down the road, I hope I will have helped to design things that, for example, make soldiers safer or make soldiers more effective, or is there a particular metric or north star that's especially important for you, even if it's not shared across the company, like it's especially important for you?

Robert Walker:
I think it's different from when I was in automotive, because in automotive, the success is almost, I would say joy, if that makes sense.

Devin Liddell:
Right.

Robert Walker:
People love their new car and it becomes their personality. And as I mentioned before, when you see someone in a car, you instantly have some idea about who they may be, and it's a game I play with my kids, but they do it with animals. But that's another game. But that car is this or that. But if you see a jeep or you see a luxury car or something, there's different personas and personalities that go with that. In defense, that's thrown out the window. It's a completely different element. The joy is that this system saved my life, not its aesthetic qualities or what it conveys to others, for example.

In defense, that's thrown out the window. It's a completely different element. The joy is that this system saved my life, not its aesthetic qualities or what it conveys to others.

Devin Liddell:
Interesting. Right. Less of a badging experience.

Robert Walker:
Yes. That's my mission is that everything we touch and do is done with that lens of the 18 or 19-year-old who's in a precarious situation that our work will help to make sure they get home.

Devin Liddell:
For Robert, the goal is clear, design tools and systems that help more people get home safely. But as AI starts to play a larger role in missions, it begs the question about the need for human presence on the battlefield at all. The role for humans in conflict zones may look entirely different in 10, 15 years, but Robert says a human presence will still be essential. He sees a future where automation and AI work alongside people, not in place of them because human experience and intuition still shape the kinds of decisions machines can't fully make.

Robert Walker:
Yeah, this is a complex space, I would say, because obviously if you take humans out of the loop, then there's less death. I mean, ultimately, right? And so I think right now, there's human decision making that is... And there's people who, I think there's human intelligence, we talk about artificial intelligence so much, but there's human intelligence that's critical in the loop. I think it's a very long way off to say that there's a human-less battlefield. I think for me, the human intelligence, and I'm learning every day, people who have been in battle, 5, 6, 10 tours of battle that people that I work with, their knowledge is unbelievable.

And I don't think we can just feed the machines that knowledge. I think there's a human element that's unbreakable and no GPT can replace lived... We talk about a lot about lived experience here and the respect for the lived experience. So yeah, I think there's an easy-talking point that that sounds great, where it's machine-only battle. I think there'll be less humans in the loop, but I don't see a day, at least not tomorrow, where there's human-less battle because of human intelligence, which we still need.

I don't think we can just feed the machines that knowledge. I think there's a human element that's unbreakable and no GPT can replace lived experience.

Devin Liddell:
Another tension that is top-of-mind for Robert is the one between design and engineering. Robert leads both teams at Detroit Defense, and these disciplines often gravitate toward different approaches when it comes to problem-solving.

Robert Walker:
It's always been this healthy design versus engineering tension, but to lead both groups is a very interesting space to be in, where it's kind of you have two groups on either shoulder and you want to serve them both.

Devin Liddell:
I love that. It's actually part of the Teague lore. Walter Dorwin Teague, when he did an early in Teague's existence, did some really formative work for Kodak. And one of the things he did was he insisted on the co-location of design and engineering teams. And that's similar to what you're undertaking, which is less sort of maneuvering or reconciling the natural tension between design and engineering and more kind of bringing the two functions together just from the start.

Robert Walker:
Correct. And then also in automotive, you always have the term creative designer, but I always used to, and now even more talk about creative engineering, so I'm really pushing my engineering team in new ways to express their craft. I also lead software and applied AI. So putting all of those together is really phenomenal, because the meetings we have, things come up in meetings and discussions because everyone's coming from such different places. But I think it's a huge strength and we're really having some phenomenal conversations that wouldn't otherwise happen even in just a design-only context. When you bring all of this together, it's this unbelievable push and pull.

When you bring all of this together, it's this unbelievable push and pull.

Devin Liddell:
It's a mindset that's helping Robert double down on a culture shifting priority, enabling more rapid prototyping. Sometimes even without a formal contract in place. In defense, work often starts only after requirements trickle down from the top. And building on spec is not typical, but as a seasoned designer, Robert knows taking on some risk earlier in the process means more opportunity to test and solve problems before they escalate in the field.

Robert Walker:
Ultimately, I want to get faster at prototyping those, getting those from paper or whiteboard to in the hands of someone various fidelity quickly so that we get feedback and then go right back into it and ultimately get it into a contractable product.

Devin Liddell:
Here at Teague, we call that prototype and process like thinking through making, to your point about getting something done quickly. There's so much to be gained when you actually just make something quickly and then you realize, "Oh, actually, we will immediately learn things that we wouldn't have made if we didn't make this."

Robert Walker:
Right. Yeah, that's not spec based. Let's go in the prototyping lab and start cutting metal and get in there. And then I always like that you get in, you make something rough fidelity, but you can poke holes at it. But it's easier said, not every company abides by that. There's still many companies that are just, "Where's the spec and we'll make it." But we're absolutely not in that. We are capable of doing that and we have systems out there, but we are very much into what's next and thinking future forward, I'd say.

Devin Liddell:
And to riff on that, to your point, every industry also has what I would describe as different tolerances for fidelity.

Robert Walker:
Yes. Yes.

Devin Liddell:
And so I'm curious from your experience so far within defense, what's the lowest fidelity prototype? What's the lowest type of fidelity that you could imagine actually showing a warfighter, for example?

Robert Walker:
3D printing is our friend. Three-dimensional data is so easy these days. I grew up in the time of Alias and was kind of the only 3D software, and now we have so many things just over the counter, if you will, to do 3D models and are then printable, right? So I think we're getting in the... The prototyping space is extremely exciting because we can get things and digital as well. So you can combine the physicality, the digital, so you can get a little bit more than duct tape and cardboard these days very quickly and not without much expense. So it's come down to a point where your prototype fidelity has gone up just naturally, but the tools and materials that are available.

Devin Liddell:
All right, quick lightning round. So what's your take on the most overhyped technology at the moment?

Robert Walker:
I think we touched on this or I touched on this earlier, and I would say what I call the AI that replaces humans narrative. I think we've seen plenty of movies in the last 20 years that also push on that. I think it's too much. I think it also goes with kind of the fully embodied robots, house cleaning robots and things like that. In that whole space, I'd rather see a robot do something that's very hard and very dangerous. That's where I'd like to see a robot versus folding my clothes. And so I think that's overhyped at the moment.

Devin Liddell:
I love that. Well, to your point, actually building a robot capable of folding clothes is really hard.

Robert Walker:
It is. It is.

Devin Liddell:
That's a complicated and thus expensive machine. Whereas to your point, I'd rather have a robot that's just focuses on my toilets.

Robert Walker:
Exactly. Right. Right. Right. Or yes, there's this show that used to be around called Dirty Jobs, I think, I forgot. And so that's where I think the robots could do well. But I think also in the battlefield, in the warfighter context, let's look more in those spaces where it is extremely dangerous for humans. I'd love to see robots in that space.

I'd rather see a robot do something that's very hard and very dangerous... in the battlefield, in the warfighter context, let's look more in those spaces where it is extremely dangerous for humans.

Devin Liddell:
Totally. That was fantastic. I love that. What about, is there a particular industry, I'll take automotive off the board since you're steeped in it, but beyond automotive, is there another industry that you look at and think, "Oh, they're actually doing... That category is doing something interesting that could be portable to what I'm doing?"

Robert Walker:
Yeah. I like what Samsung is doing now because I follow Mauro Porcini, he was with 3M and then PepsiCo for a long time and now with Samsung. I've really admired the way he leads in design because it's much more than... Again, it's designed with a capital D, it's design, and he's also very much into the human and the emotion and everything comes back to the human element. And so what I'm seeing out of Samsung and then the way they're doing AI and approaching it looks like an interesting space. So I'm going to keep track of that. Yeah, I didn't want to say Apple.

Devin Liddell:
I like it. I like the Samsung example a little more than I expected. That's it for today. Thank you for listening to Design This Day, a podcast by Teague. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss the next episode. And if you have a complex problem that needs solving, we'd love to hear from you. Visit us at teague.com or send us an email at hello@teague.com.