More Robot Grunts Ready for Duty
ORLANDO, Florida -- Hunting for guerillas, handling roadside bombs, crawling across the caves and crumbling towns of Afghanistan and Iraq -- all of that was just a start. Now, the Army is prepping its squad of robotic vehicles for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns.
As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon -- a model armed with automatic weapons -- are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. Around the same time, the first prototypes of a new, unmanned ambulance should be ready for the Army to start testing. In a warren of hangar-sized hotel ballrooms in Orlando, military engineers this week showed off their next generation of robots, as they got the machines ready for the war zone.
"Putting something like this into the field, we're about to start something that's never been done before," said Staff Sgt. Santiago Tordillos, waving to the black, 2-foot-six-inch robot rolling around the carpeted floor on twin treads, an M249 machine gun cradled in its mechanical grip.
The rest of the story is available at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65885,00.html?tw=wn_story_related
My thoughts run concurrently in 2 directions. The first is,
alright! lLet Iraqi insurgents or the Taliban, waste their IED's on these robots. It will help reduce our casualty rate.
On the other hand, OH SHIT!!, it's the frikkin rise of the machines! I'm not a technophobe. I like the idea of battle droids getting shot at instead of my countrymen. However, I know what accelerated timelines for R&D can do to debugging/quality control cycles. What do yall think?
ORLANDO, Florida -- Hunting for guerillas, handling roadside bombs, crawling across the caves and crumbling towns of Afghanistan and Iraq -- all of that was just a start. Now, the Army is prepping its squad of robotic vehicles for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns.
As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon -- a model armed with automatic weapons -- are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. Around the same time, the first prototypes of a new, unmanned ambulance should be ready for the Army to start testing. In a warren of hangar-sized hotel ballrooms in Orlando, military engineers this week showed off their next generation of robots, as they got the machines ready for the war zone.
"Putting something like this into the field, we're about to start something that's never been done before," said Staff Sgt. Santiago Tordillos, waving to the black, 2-foot-six-inch robot rolling around the carpeted floor on twin treads, an M249 machine gun cradled in its mechanical grip.
The rest of the story is available at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65885,00.html?tw=wn_story_related
My thoughts run concurrently in 2 directions. The first is,
alright! lLet Iraqi insurgents or the Taliban, waste their IED's on these robots. It will help reduce our casualty rate.On the other hand, OH SHIT!!, it's the frikkin rise of the machines! I'm not a technophobe. I like the idea of battle droids getting shot at instead of my countrymen. However, I know what accelerated timelines for R&D can do to debugging/quality control cycles. What do yall think?
