The 3rd Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade was given the opportunity for the first test runs in the field, and three units arrived in Iraq in April, according to National Defense magazine.
SWORDS is designed to take on “high risk combat missions,” according to an Army statement. The robot can draw and respond to fire before a soldier even enters a risky situation, acting as a force multiplier on the battlefield.
The SWORDS reportedly haven't fired their weapons yet, but the program manager reports the response has been so positive that the Army would like to order 80 more if their appropriations budget permits. So far, he reports, the first three units have been out on recon missions and on street patrol.
The US military has been using robots on the ground for years, and SWORDS is an adaptation of the Talon ordnance disposal robot, which the Army first started employing in Bosnia in 2000. The Talon has since been used on thousands of missions in Iraq to detect and neutralize IEDs, but the new adaption adds an M249 machine gun to its array of tools.
The SWORDS modification to the Talon robot was developed by 2004, and the Army had planned to have them ready for the battlefield by early 2005, but safety concerns required some tweaking on the design. As Noah Shachtman reports for Danger Room, the machines had a tendency to spin out of control on occasion, which posed a dreadful possibility for an armed robot.
"In the past, weak signals would keep the robots from getting orders for as much as eight seconds -- a significant lag during combat," Shachtman writes. "Now, the SWORDS won't act on a command, unless it's received right away. A three-part arming process -- with both physical and electronic safeties -- is required before firing. Most importantly, the machines now come with kill switches, in case there's any odd behavior."
Here's some footage of the SWORDS in action.
