ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Robot Wars
Robotics physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Mark Tilden developed, an autonomous robot that looks something like a five foot long stick-insect that finds and destroys land mines – by stepping on them, then moving through the minefield on its remaining legs to blow up a few more.
This is just one of an army of "battle bots" being deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, reports The Washington Post: "Bots search caves for bad guys, clear roads of improvised explosive devices, scoot under cars to look for bombs, spy on the enemy and, sometimes, kill humans."
Troops think so highly of their mechanical brothers in arms that they award them symbolic field promotions and battlefield decorations:
"Ours was called Sgt. Talon," says Sgt. Michael Maxson of the 737th Ordnance Company (EOD). "We always wanted him as our main robot. Every time he was working, nothing bad ever happened. He always got the job done. He took a couple of detonations in front of his face and didn't stop working. One time, he actually did break down in a mission, and we sent another robot in and it got blown to pieces. It's like he shut down because he knew something bad would happen." The troops promoted the robot to staff sergeant - a high honor, since that usually means a squad leader. They also awarded it three "purple hearts."
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