U.S. Army Wants More Robots

October 04, 2011

This undated photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. Monday, April 18, 2011 shows a Packbot, made by Bedford, Massachusetts company iRobot. Readings Monday from a Packbot that entered two crippled buildings of Unit 1 and Unit 3 at the tsunami-flooded Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on Sunday for the first time in more than a month displayed a harsh environment still too radioactive for workers to enter. (AP)

The U.S. Army this week agreed to an $11 million contract with iRobot to purchase 70 of its new, smaller backpack bots used by soldiers around the globe. The company says it has sold more than 4,000 of its robots world wide.

Robots have been a recurring topic for On Point shows:

Author P. W. Singer, one of the country’s authorities on battlefield robotics, joined us to talk about the future of remote controlled war last year.

iRobot CEO and co-founder Colin Angle joined us in 2009, for a show about robots.

And in 2004, we took a look at the human-robot relationship.

This program aired on October 4, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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