Military robots
Let’s bring in a little bit of philosophy before addressing the topic – military robots.
We have waged wars since the beginning of history and probably even sooner. Where is the reasoning behind humankind’s aggressive nature? Well, the line between defense and offense is quite blurred and offense is also the best defense.
Whether it’s a “war on terrorism” or an “Operation to force someone to peace”, the reason is to protect the world and their respective countries. Or so they say.
Homeland’s defense and money are powerful drives. In order to protect ourselves better at all times, many of greatest technological achievements were used initially in military context.
Surprisingly – the history of robotic devices used for military purposes can be traced pretty far back – at the 1930s in the Soviet Union. The soviets made so called teletanks. The operator was in another tank that could be as far as 1500 meters behind the teletank. The teletanks were controlled using radio signals. In WWII Germany used “Goliath” tracked mines.
As you know, the technology has gone a far way since the times of WWII so the possibilities are much more advanced now. Nevertheless, most of the robots I’ll tell you about are still operated by a human operator.
In this section I’ll also discuss robots that can be used for civilian operations, like search and rescue, firefighting, law enforcement etc.
Cargo carriers
These are military robots that are used for transportation missions. It can be ammunition, weaponry, supplies or everything else. These can be legged robots for rough terrains but usually they are wheeled robots. Read more on military transportation robots
Search and rescue
They do what the name tells. Robots used in search and rescue missions. Read more on search and rescue robots.
Fire-fighting
It is possible that one day this hazardous job will be entrusted to robots. Nowadays there are working projects – robots that can be connected to a water hydrant and used for fire extinguishing. Read more on firefighting robots
Mine clearance
Yet another highly hazardous mission that can take human lives. Military robots for mine clearance are used all around the world nowadays. These are usually remote controlled by an operator which is in a safe distance.
Surveillance and reconnaissance
To see what the enemy has up his sleeve is a very handy advantage. Different robots are used for surveillance and/or reconnaissance missions. Those military robots used for reconnaissance missions behind the enemy lines could be equipped with weaponry as well.
Armed robots
These are robots that shoot people. Period.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
These are flying robots. Usually used for surveillance missions. However, it seems that it’s possible that there will be unmanned fighters and bombers one day as well.
Unmanned Ground Vehicles
Most of the military robots in sections above are actually UGV’s. This means that they move on the ground.
Unmanned Underwater Vehicle
These are robots that can swim underwater.
As you can understand this division is quite blurred. There are many cases that the same robot can be used for surveillance purposes as well as for search and rescue missions, etc.
Also, the last three chapters accordingly – UAV’s, UGV’s and UUV’s are more like a division by the environment and should not be viewed separately of all the other chapters. Any of these can be in the same time a surveillance robot or maybe a mine clearance military robot, for example.
At the moment, you see a short introduction on every of the above mentioned topics. As time goes by, I’ll add articles on every of them.