Military robot
robotic device designed for military applications
Military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled mobile robots designed for military applications, from transport to search & rescue and attack.
Some such systems are currently in use, and many are under development. The difference between military robots and military drones is unclear as of 2025: some say that lethal autonomous weapons are robots whereas others describe “fully autonomous military drones”.
History
Broadly defined, military robots date back to World War II and the Cold War in the form of the German Goliath tracked mines and the Soviet teletanks. The introduction of the MQ-1 Predator drone was when "CIA officers began to see the first practical returns on their decade-old fantasy of using aerial robots to collect intelligence".
The use of robots in warfare, although traditionally a topic for science fiction, is being researched as a possible future means of fighting wars. Already several military robots have been developed by various armies. Some believe the future of modern warfare will be fought by automated weapons systems. The U.S. military is investing heavily in the RQ-1 Predator, which can be armed with air-to-ground missiles and remotely operated from a command center in reconnaissance roles. DARPA has hosted competitions in 2004 & 2005 to involve private companies and universities to develop unmanned ground vehicles to navigate through rough terrain in the Mojave Desert for a final prize of 2 million.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Military robot” as robotic device designed for military applications. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1235833. The Library of Congress control number is sh2007005901. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2004 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Military robot” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.