Three armed robots, nicknamed SWORDS, have begun patrolling the streets of Iraq. The robots "haven't fired their weapons yet," says Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, "But that'll be happening soon."
Robots on the streets of Iraq is far from a new occurrence. In fact, they have been there since the beginning of the occupation. This is, however, the first time in the history armed conflict that the patrolling robots have been equipped with weaponry.
[url=http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/http
wwwnational.html t=_blank]SWORDS, an acronym meaning "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system", are equipped with M249 machine guns.
Robots, in the past, have mainly been used for surveillance and bomb-disposal.
The SWORDS were originally declared ready for duty in 2004 but safety concerns kept them off the streets. Some of the machines had a problem where they would inexplicable spin out of control.
Hopefully these problems have been fixed.
The 'bots now have kill switches and electronic and manual safeties to help prevent any disastrous mistakes
