The US Army is preparing 18 Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems (SWORDs) units to go to Iraq sometime in March and April. The units are robotic vehicles which act as sharpshooters. They are remotely controlled.
The vehicles come equipped with cameras which allow humans to select targets to fire upon. The vehicles will not fire until a human selects the target and presses a button. The robots are three feet high and carry standard issue M249 or M240 weapons.
So far Talon robots have been used by the US military to defuse roadside bombs. The company behind the project is converting Talons into SWORDs. They can run sometime between 1-4 hours on their lithium ion batteries.
