Hmmm the plot thickens.Associated PressArmy PreparesRobo-Soldier...

Hmmm the plot thickens.

Associated PressArmy Prepares

Robo-Soldier for Iraq

Saturday January 22, 8:51 pm ET
By Michael P. Regan,
AP Business Writer Army Prepares Armed 'Robo-Soldier' for Iraq;

18 Devices to Be Sent Into Combat This Spring ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. (AP) -- The rain is turning to snow on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in a parking lot here surely would prefer to be inside. But the weather couldn't matter less to the robotic sharpshooter they are here to watch as it splashes through puddles, the barrel of its machine gun pointing the way like Pinocchio's nose. The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.

Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp.It's easy to humanize the SWORDS (a tendency robotics researchers say is only human) as it moves out of the flashy lobby of an office building and into the cold with nary a shiver.Military officials like to compare the roughly three-foot-high robots favorably to human soldiers: They don't need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and warehoused between wars. They never complain. And there are no letters to write home if they meet their demise in battle.But officials are quick to point out that these are not the autonomous killer robots of science fiction. A SWORDS robot shoots only when its human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras."The only difference is that his weapon is not at his shoulder, it's up to half a mile a way," said Bob Quinn, general manager of Talon robots for Foster-Miller Inc., the Waltham, Mass., company that makes the SWORDS. As one Marine fresh out of boot camp told Quinn upon seeing the robot: "This is my invisibility cloak."Quinn said it was a "bootstrap development process" to convert a Talon robot, which has been in military service since 2000, from its main mission -- defusing roadside bombs in Iraq-- into the gunslinging SWORDS.It was a joint development process between the Army and Foster-Miller,
------------------------------------------------------------"a robotics firm bought in November by QinetiQ Group PLC,
which is a partnership between the British Ministry of Defence and the Washington holding company The Carlyle Group."
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Well there are more dots now, GEM, QinetiQ Group PLC,The Carlyle Group, and now also Foster-Miller Inc with SWORDS