Army looks for a few good robots, sparks industry battle
By MATT O'BRIENDecember 28, 2018
CHELMSFORD, Mass. (AP) — The Army is looking for a few good robots. Not to fight — not yet, at least — but to help the men and women who do.
These robots aren’t taking up arms, but the companies making them have waged a different kind of battle. At stake is a contract worth almost half a billion dollars for 3,000 backpack-sized robots that can defuse bombs and scout enemy positions. Competition for the work has spilled over into Congress and federal court.
The project and others like it could someday help troops “look around the corner, over the next hillside and let the robot be in harm’s way and let the robot get shot,†said Paul Scharre, a military technology expert at the Center for a New American Security.
https://apnews.com/5ab30e91e7174195b598a7379607b191
