[LINK] iRobot Warrior Robots

[Tom Worthington]

At 10:30 PM 26/06/2008, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>... iRobot warrior robots can be modified .. to support functioning 
>weapons' ...

It is worth pointing out that unlike some iRobot products, the 
"PacBot" military robots are not intended to operate autonomously 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PackBot>. In a sense they are not 
robots at all: just remote control manipulators. The machine will not 
move (or fire a weapon) on its own.

Autonomous operation of a weapon by a robot may be illegal, under the 
land mine treaty <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty>. The 
treaty bans explosive devices which are activated automatically. 
Australia signed the treaty.

iRobot has an Australian connection, via its co-founder Rodney 
Brooks, originally from Adelaide. He is now Professor of Robotics at 
MIT, but visits Australia occasionally: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/08/robots-for-real-world.html>.


ps: Hopefully the military robot works better than iRobot's silly 
"Looj" gutter cleaning robot: 
<http://astore.amazon.com/robots-20/detail/B000WL4QAW/>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University