Success of recon robots makes them targets

"Success of recon robots makes them targets

One measure of how effective battlefield robots have become, says a top Pentagon robotics official, is that the enemy has begun to target them. "The enemy realizes that if they take out [the robot],


reconrobot 
they can really hurt our capabilities," said Cliff Hudson, who directs the Joint Robotics Program for the Department of Defense. Reconnaissance robots, such as the backpackable Dragon Runner developed by Carnegie Mellon University, and those that dispose of unexploded mines and bombs have shown that they save soldiers' lives, Hudson said. The success with small ground robots, as well as with unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, has bolstered confidence as the armed forces move toward larger vehicles, such as Carnegie Mellon's 1-ton Gladiator recon robot, which will have longer range and, eventually, operate autonomously. "
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