Designed by Massachusetts-based defense contractor Foster-Miller, the Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-Action System, or SWORDS, stands three feet tall and can be equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers.
The Pentagon’s dream of a techno army is doomed to fail
by Eric Stoner, In These Times, Feb. 15, 2009
One of the most captivating storylines in science fiction involves a nightmarish vision of the future in which autonomous killer robots turn on their creators and threaten the extinction of the human race. Hollywood blockbusters such as Terminator and The Matrix are versions of this cautionary tale, as was R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the 1920 Czech play by Karel Capek that marked the first use of the word “robot.”
In May 2007, the U.S. military reached an ominous milestone in the history of warfare—one that took an eerie step toward making this fiction a reality. After more than three years of development, the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division based south of Baghdad, deployed armed ground robots.
More Info: SWORDS Video on the Military Channel