Robots Strut Their Stuff In Ann Arbor ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - Robotics companies showed off their latest creations in Ann Arbor on Monday at the University of Michigan College of Engineering, including the latest roadside bomb-detecting robots. Military experts say the robots have saved hundreds of American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The company iRobot gives a demonstration of a large robot it calls the Warrior . The eight-foot long arm of the robot clamps onto a shell weighing over 100 pounds, lifts it gently, and drops it with a loud "clang."

Smaller versions are already on the battlefield, but they still weigh fifty pounds. iRobot Co-founder Helen Greiner says soon, thirty-pound models will ease the load on soldiers.

"When they were going around in Afghanistan searching caves where the Taliban were hiding weapons caches, they (the soldiers) were toting them on their backs."

Military experts say robots have drastically reduced military deaths from roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. Senator Carl Levin also attended the conference.

He was instrumental in shifting a key Army robotics program from Alabama to the Warren Armory in 2005.

Since then, the Armory has received 18 million dollars for robotics research and development.

Levin says some of that funding makes its way into Michigan's private sector and universities. He expects the use of robotics in the military will only increase in the future.

"It can't come fast enough because this relates to the safety and success of the men and women who are carrying out military missions, but we've got thousands of robots out there right now."

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