In the decade since the start of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military has relied increasingly on robots. Drones and bomb-removal bots have been designed to keep troops out of harm's way. Now the U.S. Department of Defense is looking for sleeker, faster robots that can assist with a wider range of missions.

The Cheetah, pictured at the right, is one of the new breeds under development. Real cheetahs, which can sprint up to about 120 kilometers per hour, are the fastest-running animals; the robot, made by Boston Dynamics in Waltham, Mass., reaches nearly 30 kilometers per hour, making it the fastest-legged robot.

4 Comments

1. 1. promytius 10:41 AM 7/9/12

   Looks like nothing more than an inexcusably expensive target. The efforts should go into raising the basic standard of living for everyone; that's how to make war. Dollars, not bullets, and while you're doing that, make sure it's only rich money that's used, not my tax dollars. I do not want to finance death in any deal. Add up how much we spent in Iraq, divide that by the number of people still alive - if you simply gave each person that much and said to them, improve your lives, and be try to live better - you'd agree that's a better investment than the deleted uranium shells, leukemia, cancer, desperation and hatred for us resulting from our current methods.

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2. 2. bucketofsquid 04:46 PM 7/10/12

   Since the Iraq war was essentially a pissing match between the Bush and Hussein families, I have no issue with the post from Promytius. Afghanistan however, was simply a matter of national defense.
   
   If you try to kill us we have the right to try to kill you right back. If you protect our enemies that have tried to kill us while you are pretending to be our friends and taking billions in payment such as Pakistan did then you should expect saturation firebombing of your main population centers.
   
   Personally, I prefer assassination because it strikes directly at the source of the problem with minimal collateral damage, also known as mass murder of children. Unfortunately most people cater to the silly concept of mass combat because politicians prefer to have other people get killed for their mistakes instead of being adults and taking responsibility themselves.
   
   As for the robots, well how much are your eye worth to you? How about your legs? The bots are cheap when put in proper perspective. Now if we could just get rid of the TSA...

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3. 3. jrvz 05:08 AM 7/11/12

   It is a great pity that this technology is being developed at great expense for military purposes. Are there any peaceful or humanitarian applications?
   
   Also - they are trying to save soldiers lives. How about trying to save civilians lives??

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4. 4. jrvz 05:13 AM 7/11/12

   They are imitating a cheetah, which mainly runs on relatively flat ground to negotiate "terrain too rocky for wheels.
   
   Maybe they should be imitating a klipspringer ("stone jumper" antelope)or mountain goat.

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