Portal:Robotics/Featured article/4

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Military robots are autonomous or remote-controlled devices designed for military applications. Such systems are currently being researched by a number of militaries. Already remarkable success has been achieved with unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator drone, which is capable of taking surveillance photographs, and even accurately launching missiles at ground targets, without a pilot. A subclass of these are Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles, which are designed to carry out strike missions in combat.

Robots are used increasingly in wartime situations to reduce human casualties, being used for a mix of both combat against the enemy and non-combat roles such as scouting and bomb disposal. At present stages robot casualties are less financially damaging than human, SWORDs taking $230,000 to produce while the average cost of a U.S. soldier from enlistment to internment is $4,000,000.