While it's always bittersweet to report on the latest advancements in autonomous military
killbots, the one upside to Foster-Miller's most recent heavily-armed robotic platform is that it possesses enhanced safeguards to minimize incidences of friendly fire or civilian casualties. That being said, QinetiQ's
SWORDS-smith is still touting the improved "lethality" of its new MAARS chassis (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System), a 350-pound
PackBot-type unit that, unlike its predecessor, was built from the ground up with murder in its heart. Its M240B Medium Machine Gun is more powerful than SWORDS' M249, although redesigned software and a mechanical range fan are said to bolster safety by delineating live fire zones and keeping barrels pointed away from allied positions, respectively. A final precaution precludes the bots from firing directly at their control units -- a feature that will provide little solace to the MAARS controller whose charge has just pulled a 180 after being hacked by enemy forces. For a short video of the new bot still under friendly control, keep reading after the break...
[Via
Danger Room and
The Raw Feed]
posted October 8th 2007 5:57PM
This would be nice to send down those alleyways ahead of the squad to help lower casualties from fear of the robotic gun alone. Enemies would be less inclined to step out from the shadowy doorways with this thing leading the pack just from the simple fact that it would impose a colder presence as to what it’s directives are and what its capabilities are.
Needs to have the following features...
- Onboard GPS with direct links to assigned squad at all times (by the way soldiers should get implanted GPS before Alzheimer patients.)
- Onboard FLIR, infrared, night vision, etc…
- Ability to distinguish threat levels by scanning enemy body position i.e. holding weapon, hands over head, white flag, etc… and be able to act accordingly.
- Slap on an auto reload M203 grenade launcher for fun.
- And lastly a self destruct just like Predator if its wounded and the GPS link is still up let the enemy wheel it home and BLAM!
It doesn't think for itself there is a Joe driving it at all times and watching through its (many) cameras. I'm pretty sure revealing what those cameras do would violate OPsec to a high degree so i'll leave that out but lets put it this way. These things have had people running them for a long time troubleshooting and coming up with ideas for what they need. They have a great deal of non-classified military crap on them.
And Land Warrior provides individual soldiers with GPS. It goes way beyond that too. All your Starship Troopers/Ghost Recon ideas of the military are already under development.
does anyone else think that shot looks kinda like a darlek from Dr. Who?
Wow, Metal Gear Solid's utopia of "Metal Gear" and proxie wars and controlled battlefields is becoming a bigger and bigger reality..
I can just imagine this thing rolling around shouting "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
yeah, that'd be awesome...
What a disgusting machine. Mankind is truly stupid.
This is probably a good time for people to start developing really powerful EMP munitions.
I like how they're putting higher powered machine guns on these. The older generation used M16-style guns, which made them less combat effective than a soldier. Now that they've got vehicle-type weapons they can see some real use in heavy combat.