iRobot poised to unveil Warrior and SUGV military bots

iRobot is kind of a strange company. It seems like half the engineering team is hard at work on helpful little slavebots -- Roomba, Scooba, and the new Dirt Dog -- that aid common folk with their domestic chores, while the other half has seen Terminator one too many times and is all about building autonomous military vehicles that can be weaponized and transformed into killbots. Case in point is the new 250-pound Warrior (pictured above), formerly known as the NEOmover, which will officially be unveiled next week at the U.S. Army Annual Meeting & Exposition (it's like CES, except everyone is packing heat and telling glorified war stories). Initially Warrior -- along with another new bot, the 30-pound Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (or SUGV, pictured after the break) -- will be tasked with duties to similar to their predecessor, the PackBot: hauling around gear for troops, scouting out potentially dangerous locations, and sacrificing their young lives by literally jumping on the grenade (or land mine, or IED). However, Robot Stock News reports that iRobot Chairperson Helen Grenier has already discussed outfitting the mechanized fleet with guns and missiles, allowing them to mow down the enemy in between more humanitarian work like firefighting and battlefield extraction. Now we would never suggest that technology capable of keeping our soldiers out of harm's way should be discouraged, but we've seen Robocop one too many times and know what can happen when you strap heavy artillery onto an angry robot. Anyway, here's to hoping that by the time these bots get all decked out with machine guns and RPGs, the only enemy "troops" they'll ever face are the kind that South Korea is on the verge of deploying -- with robots fighting robots, everyone wins.

[Via GoRobotics]

[AJ00 @ Oct 6th 2006 5:37PM]

its only a matter of time befor they take us out

[chiefbutz @ May 21st 2007 8:18PM]

AJ00 I would have to disagree, they will only take us all our if we give them true AI, which I am hoping no one is stupid enough to do. If they are, I will point at movies like The Matrix, and iRobot and say "Didn't you see those? Come on! What are you stupid!?"

[disciple83 @ Oct 6th 2006 5:44PM]

These are truly terrifying times. There is a reason why you can find movies like "Terminator" and "Robocop" in horror or sci-fi sections at movie rental stores. They were meant to be fictional, and something to scare the kiddies. I understand the positive benefits to this, namely that of humans not having to be on the battlefield, just the guns. That's where the guns should be, but they don't need to have their own automated targeting system.

[Jeff @ Oct 6th 2006 6:08PM]

As long as we never make a robot capable of firing a weapon without human intervention I'm all for it.

[SurfedToTheEndAndBack @ Oct 6th 2006 6:11PM]

So when we have robots fighting robots, will wars ever really end? No ones' spirit will ever be broken, so why declare a loser? I see armed robots as one more step towards the wonderfully Orwellian scenario of permanent war- perpetually blowing up each others' robots simply to keep the proles in a constant state of red alert.

[Andir3.0 @ Oct 6th 2006 6:15PM]

"it's like CES, except everyone is packing heat and telling glorified war stories"

Rap music?

[Kenno @ Oct 6th 2006 6:30PM]

Suppose there was a war and only the robots showed up.


(Under 35 alert: It's a play on John Lennon's famous phrase. He was a musician of a form called Bug Music, spent a lot of time in bed, married an artist, broke up the band and was gunned down in New York -- no, human not robot. Imagine.)

[Logical_thinker @ Oct 6th 2006 6:33PM]

Is'nt it interesting how American companies and researches on robotics tend to focus on military use (ie: killing), while other countries like Japan tend to focus on robots that assist and help humans?

[Andir3.0 @ Oct 6th 2006 6:38PM]

People follow money. In America, the only "company" willing to pay hundreds of thousands per piece is the "company" of war. In Japan, where entertainment is probably more lucrative (also since they don't feel the need to "police the world") it's easy to see how Japanese research money goes into things like "helper" bots. Besides, why would they waste money on military endeavors when the US will most likely have to defend Japan?

[gen y @ Oct 6th 2006 8:29PM]

@ Kenno:

We know who lennon was, gramps. We're working on robots that will go after you SUV driving, environment destroying, job outsourcing baby boomers. It will be beautiful.

[Kenno @ Oct 6th 2006 11:12PM]

What's that sonny-boy? You're too young to have an opinion, why I oughta re-boot you. Now git back to your Mc-job I'm gonna need a lot of health care and you are going to pay for it, you and your robot over-lords. Gawl-dern new fangled robot over-lords, can't make no sense out of those manuals no how. If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they -- oh, wait a minute, this generation can't put a man on the moon. Dag-num, threaten me will yeah, why when I was young we knew how to threaten the oldies, I tell you. Listen up, we grew hair and had music without drum machines and it had melody, weren't just some stupe talking into a microphone, and code too, we did code, real code, not new fangled C+, why in my day that was what they drank on the moon. Call me old, will yeah... what were you saying? Never mind... young people and robots, no respect, I tell you, just no respect!

[NeoteriX @ Oct 6th 2006 10:00PM]

Jesus. 9 comments and no "I for one, welcome our... overlords."?!

Well, I for one, welcome our 250 pound, dual-purpose-functioning, gun/missile firing weapons platform and carpet vacuuming robotic overlords.

[uclatommy @ Oct 6th 2006 10:50PM]

Yes! there it is! The obligatory "I, for one..." meme. I was waiting for it. Lol

[Stan Marsh @ Oct 7th 2006 12:08AM]

Don't forget the robots that South Korea is planning to use to patrol it's borders. The're 200k a piece, and fully capable of killing you without any human confirmation / intervention.

Kinda scary; but after taking a philosophy of the mind course, I doubt these `guys will ever be as intelligent as us. You never know though!

A big problem that I forsee is that if wars are mostly fought with robots, wars might gain super-popularity. More like a game than reality.

[Impure @ Oct 17th 2006 4:51PM]

Terminator and Robocop nothing...that's a Combaticon, even though the treads look like a Constructicon.