First armed ground robot readied for deployment.

The robot army is coming. A concept touted by science fiction novelists for decades, the first armed ground robots may roll into the field as early as this month, according to Army and industry officials.

Unlike the sci-fi robots that enslave mankind, these will not have autonomous control. Two years of safety testing will ensure that the machines only fire when commanded to do so, officials said.

"There's a huge revolution about to take place in the next two months when we put the very first armed robot on the ground into combat," said Charlie Dean, program manager for advanced robotics at Foster-Miller Inc., the system's contractor.

The special weapons observation reconnaissance detection system, SWORDS, is a combination of two commercial-off-the-shelf items, the Talon IIIB robot and a standard M249 machine gun.

Up to 83 will be deployed in Iraq pending Pentagon approval, according to Michael Zecca, SWORDS program officer.

The goal is to "find, fix and finish the enemy" while reducing the exposure of troops to live fire, and therefore, the potential for casualties, Zecca said.

The program was put on an accelerated testing schedule after the Army sent out an operational needs statement in 2004. The statement allowed the acquisition process to proceed on a quicker schedule. Zecca expects the two-year testing process to be cut substantially for future versions. "It was a learning process," he said at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference

The testing "has been a struggle," Zecca admitted. Safety was the number one concern. The goal was to ensure that the robot fired only when the user intended it to fire, he added.

SWORDS is mounted on the Talon IIIB robot, manufactured by Foster-Miller, which has sent dozens of the models to Southwest Asia, mostly for explosive ordnance disposal teams. They have also been used for reconnaissance in urban environments and caves in Afghanistan.

The first wave of SWORDS robots will carry the M249. The M240B medium machine gun will be mounted next, and approval to do so will likely come within months. The idea, Zecca said, is to take baby steps in the system's development.

The first robots to be fielded will carry 200 rounds. Future development plans call for increases in the amount and types of ammo, Zecca said. The robot will be able to operate about a mile beyond the operator, who will monitor the unit on a view screen.

The system was designed to be used by a single soldier. Dean said the goal was to allow the operator to see exactly what he would through a normal gun sight.

"The machine gunner is already trained to use that optics, so he doesn't have to learn anything new," Dean said.

"He's seeing what he would see with his eyeball squished up against the gun, but now on a camera." The effect will be to "move the machine gunner's hands 500 to 1,000 meters away from the body," he added.

The system will have four cameras and night vision capabilities. It has been tested successfully in six inches of water, and has been used up to 2.1 miles away, although operators will likely keep that down to a mile.

Safety measures include a kill switch and encrypted commands. The kill switch was added late in the testing process when a robot had an "uncommanded movement," Zecca said. It was the first such incident with a Talon, but Foster-Miller came up with the device within three weeks to allay any concerns. The system also had to pass some last-minute tests at the Yuma proving ground's IED testing facility in Arizona to ensure its communications system did not interfere with other links and was immune to electronic fratricide.

A unique capability of SWORDS, Dean added, will be the option of firing single shots or bursts, something a soldier currently cannot do. A squeeze of the trigger would fire at least seven rounds. That effectively makes the robot a sniper or a machine gunner.

"It's quite revolutionary," Dean said, while claiming the system will be "more accurate than a soldier with his shoulder against the butt stock or a machine gun on a tripod."

The robot will have to be in a set position to fire. Shooting and moving simultaneously will be a feature added in future versions, Zecca said.

And there will be little protection for the robot itself, except for some Kevlar strips to ward off small arms fire. Its main defense will be its speed, low profile and the ability to maneuver behind objects, Dean said.

If a robot were to be captured, enemies would not be able to operate it without the control system. However, they might be able to strip off the gun and use it if they had ammunition, Zecca said.

Other features to be incorporated in future versions will be a round counter. Currently, the operator will have to use one of his cameras to visually check the magazine.

Other firearms have already been mounted and demonstrated including grenade launchers and anti-tank rockets, Dean said.

"These robots are here now and they're going to be more prevalent in the future, so everyone needs to get on board and be able to support these systems," Zecca said.