Bots & Bullets

The San Francisco Police Department does not get permission to use robots equipped with lethal weapon. In a surprising U-turn the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have reversed their earlier first round vote that allowed police to kill suspects with robots. This result of the second round of voting came after massive public outcry against deploying killer robots.

Milrem Robotics and the German defence company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) have signed a contract to deliver 14 THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) to Ukraine.

Sarcos Defense, a subsidiary of Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation today announced the company has been awarded a $1M contract by the Army Applications Laboratory, U.S. Army Futures Command for the testing of a robotic solution that Sarcos developed for ammunition handling and maneuvering.

Search and Destroy, is the mission of LANIUS, a highly maneuverable and versatile drone-based loitering munition by Elbit Systems. The robot is designed for short-range operation in the urban environment, and can autonomously scout and map buildings and points of interest for possible threats, detecting, classifying and syncing to Elbit Systems’ Legion-X solutions. LANIUS can carry lethal or non-lethal payloads, capable of performing a broad spectrum of mission profiles for special forces, military, law enforcement, and HLS.

At Project Convergence 2022 (PC22) Kraus Hamdani Aerospace introduced its newest offering, the upSwarm “Skynet* for good” system in conjunction with a demonstration for the K1000ULE, the world’s longest endurance fully electric zero emissions autonomous unmanned aircraft in its size and weight category.

Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation  has executed field trials for shipyard operations at the Naval Base Ventura County. The Company performed field tests on the ground and at height using a suite of Sarcos solutions, including the Guardian DX teleoperated dexterous robot for defense; the Sapien 6M dexterous robot; the Sapien Sea Class underwater robot; and the Guardian S remote visual inspection robot.

Knightscope, developer of autonomous security robots, announced it has completed its acquisition of CASE Emergency Systems. This adds a network of 7,000+ blue light towers and emergency call box to the portfolio of Knightscope.

Elbit Systems UK recently conducted successful demonstrations of its Seagull Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) to showcase its autonomous mine hunting technology for the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). The Wilton Industry Show and Experiment (WISEX) showed the robots mine hunting capabilities under operational conditions.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory/DVIDS has released a short video of the Adaptive Radome Diagnostic System (ARDS) – the first use of a collaborative mobile robot in Air Force maintenance depots. 

Russian Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) offers a reward for the capture of a THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle by Milrem Robotics. Ukraine is the first country to deploy these robots in combat.