Word: pentagonal
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...Pentagon is working to speed up the purhase of 6,000 or more of such lighter, more mobile transport called MRAP-ATVs (the initial-loving military's monikker for "Mine Resistant Ambush Protection All Terrain Vehicles"). The vehicles "will have a smaller turn radius and be capable of keeping up with some of the pickup trucks [run by insurgents] they may be chasing," says Gen. Robert Lennox, the U.S. Army's assistant deputy chief of staff for operations. The specifics required by the Army and the Marines are spelled out in the request for bids: blas-resistant, off-road vehicles...
...addition to ODIN, the Pentagon is spending millions of dollars more on other drones to track IEDs and their makers. The names are colorful: Yellow Jacket, Copperhead, the Sentinel Hawk. The Yellow Jacket project, which involves an almost self-contained robot aircraft, will cost nearly $10 million...
...course, there are some experts who are less sanguine about the capabilities of "autonomous" robots than the Pentagon. Says Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a public-policy think tank: "It is tough enough for us to train human soldiers to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants on the battlefield. It is much more difficult to write software that does that." Goure adds, "How does a robot distinguish between a friendly ally, a local civilian or a hostile fighter? The distinguishing characteristics are for the most part very small. What are the distinguishing characteristics between an enemy column...
...more reason for the Pentagon to make sure humans can still climb into the driver's seat - and tell the robot who's boss...
...approaching when the U.S. military can deploy a robot that can drive itself around a corner, use senors to detect an enemy fighter on the move and destroy targets instantly with missiles and machine guns - all without human intervention? The Pentagon thinks the day may be imminent, and it wants to ensure that its technology doesn't get ahead of military doctrine. It wants to be certain that there is always a human making decisions regarding the use of lethal force...