Robot Warriors with Automatic Weapons to be Battlefield Ready in Five Years

Northrop Grumman’s CaMEL (Carry-all Mechanized Equipment Landrover), among the armed robots at the rodeo, can be fitted with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and grenade launchers. It can run for more than 20 hours on 3.5 gallons of fuel, according to the company, and carry a load of 1,000 pounds. It also can produce power to charge batteries or power other systems.

– From a Wired article published October 18, 2013

What could possibly go wrong? Perfect for “domestic enemies” and tax evaders.

More from Wired:

Robots armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and even grenade launchers are marching, er, rolling ever closer to the battlefield now that they’ve shown they can actually hit what they’re supposed to.

Four robotics companies — HDT Robotics, iRobot, Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ — recently ran their M240 machine gun-armed robots through a live-fire demo at Fort Benning in what has been dubbed the “Robotic Rodeo.” The point was to give the brass a chance to see just how viable such systems are.

“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.”

Senior Army officers attending the rodeo appeared satisfied with the robots after seeing them accurately hit targets 500 feet away, and they hope to see battle ‘bots in action within five years. 

This isn’t the first time the Pentagon has played with weaponized robots, but earlier experiments proved such machines weren’t ready for primetime after some of them moved without commands.

Northrop Grumman’s CaMEL (Carry-all Mechanized Equipment Landrover), among the armed robots at the rodeo, can be fitted with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and grenade launchers. It can run for more than 20 hours on 3.5 gallons of fuel, according to the company, and carry a load of 1,000 pounds. It also can produce power to charge batteries or power other systems.

Take a look for yourself.

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