A graphic from the U.S. Army’s official Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) strategy
While cyborg soldiers and fully automated weapons have long been fodder for futuristic sci-fi thrillers, they are now a reality and, if the Pentagon gets its way, will soon become the norm in the U.S. military. As
Defense One reported last Thursday, the Army had just concluded a live-fire exercise using a remote-controlled ground combat vehicle complete with a fully automated machine gun. The demonstration marked the first time that the Army has used a ground robot providing fire in tandem with human troops in a military exercise and, as Defense One noted, "it won't be the last."
Indeed, last week's exercise represents just the latest step in the Pentagon's relatively quiet tip-toe into converting the U.S. Armed Forces to a machine-majority force. Faced with
low recruitment and an increased demand for soldiers, the Department of Defense is seeking to solve that problem altogether while also increasing the military's firepower and force in combat.
Though unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), better known as drones, are the most well known of these devices, the Pentagon has been investing heavily - for decades - in a cadre of military robots aimed at dominating air, sea, and land. In 2010, the Pentagon
had already invested $4 billion in research programs into "autonomous systems" and, since then, its research wing - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as
DARPA - has been spending much of its roughly
$3 billion annual budget funding robotic research intended for use in military applications.
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