Military

Improvised Explosive Devices are the biggest killers of U.S. troops in Iraq ... and one of the biggest killer of IEDs is Foster-Miller's Talon robot.

"It's an excellent robot, and I would rate it as being the best one in theater," ordnance disposal Airman Robert Wester told an Air Force reporter. But how does the Talon compare to other robots -- say, the bestselling iRobot?

The Pentagon killer-boffin agency DARPA (the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) has made another move forward in its plan to replace all US military humans with robots. The latest trick the droids have learned is that of flying a plane during air-to-air refuelling.

The US Army recently debuted the first armed unmanned ground system (UGS) in Iraq, marking a new milestone for unmanned systems.

iRobot Corp. has entered into a strategic alliance with Taser International Inc. to develop new robots that can remotely engage, incapacitate, and control dangerous suspects with integrated Taser electronic control devices.

DARPA's proposed LANdroids won't be the first installation to offer up expendable data gathering pawns on the battlefield, but these "intelligent, autonomous radio relay nodes" could be used to "establish and manage mesh networks in urban settings."

If the United States is still at war in 2010, its wounded soldiers may be carried off the battlefield in the metallic arms of a BEAR.

This Car Drives Itself

The two guys nearly fell off their bikes staring at a Lotus Elise roadster as it rumbled past them on N.C. State University's Centennial Campus. Nobody was driving the curvy blue sports car. The cyclists struggled for words.

"Hey," one said. "Is that, uh, automatic?"

Brian Hart lost his son to a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2003, and ever since he's been looking for ways to save soldiers' lives.

Vecna's dedication to helping people also shows in our Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot, or BEAR. The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot, or BEAR, combines a hyper-agile mobility platform with dynamic balancing and a high-strength upper body, all in humanoid form.

A tiny, two-wheeled contraption, trailing a camera on a wire, looking for all the world like a 2.5-pound dumbbell. David Gustafson from Recon Robotics was showing off a couple of these little guys ("Recon Scouts," he calls them -- terrible name) at the Mock Riot in Moundsville, West Virginia, this week. After letting one bot charge for a few minutes, he underhanded it across the show room.