14 DAY TRIAL // Once upon a time, though not too long ago, the army tried to use SWORDS, a weaponized, tank-like robot that ended up decommissioned because it made movements without being given a command, as creepy as it sounds. Now it's time for round two.
Four robotics companies, HDT Robotics, iRobot, Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ, created the M240.
M240 is a robot armed with a machine gun. It was demoed at a live-fire demo at Fort Benning. The “Robotic Rodeo” is what the event was called.
The video embedded above shows the robot shooting some dummies. It starts with some misses, but manages to hit what it's supposed to eventually, kicking up a huge cloud of dirt in the process.
“They’re not just tools, but members of the squad. That’s the goal,” Lt. Col. Willie Smith, chief of unmanned ground vehicles at Fort Benning told Computerworld. “A robot becoming a member of the squad, we see that as a matter of training.”
Well, it's always good to reduce the number of people in the line of fire. Too bad war isn't keen on going completely away though.