Robots Go Spelunking

Posted by michael on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:03PM from the i,-robot dept.

anakog writes "Yahoo! News runs a story about robots being used by the military in Afghanistan to search caves. The article features a few slides with pictures and comments. This seems to be the first time robots are used as tools for combat, although the article does not say if they have encountered any resistance yet. There is no mention of the manufacturer of the robots, however, I am fairly certain that they are the PackBots manufactured by IRobot. I happened to visit Real World Interface (which later merged with IRobot) a couple of years ago and saw the PackBots' predecessors, which were called Urban Robots. The company had a contract with the Department of Defence. As the name implies, the military were envisioning to use the robots to scan buildings in urban areas back then."

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Perhaps not the first time... by pease1 · 2002-07-31 23:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

This seems to be the first time robots are used as tools for combat...
In WWII, the German army used a remote control tank that was filled with explosives and driven into a target. A photo is here (about half down the page).
While not a true robot (I think these were control via wires), they were used in combat a good bit, including attacking landing craft during the D-Day invasion.
Another German tank, the Borgward IV was a surviable remote control vehicle driven by radio and was used to lay mines, telephone wire and the likes.
Israeli sapper robot by woolite · 2002-07-31 23:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

Israeli sapper robot in action.