You and What Droid Army?
Out in Grand Prairie, Lockheed Martin Corporation is testing the weapon of the future: the Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (or MULE, fer shorts). And it is ... ? "Roughly the size of a Humvee," says the March issue of Popular Mechanics, "it has a trick worthy of monster truck rallies. Each of its six wheels is mounted on an articulated leg, allowing the robot to clamber up obstacles that other cars would simply bump against."
The cover story ("America's Robot Army") is not online, but the magazine lays out the details of the machine that should be combat-ready by 2014. The Army's ordered about 1,700 models of the "futuristic forerunner of the robot army," half of which will be armed and half of which will carry stuff and clear mines. Now, I can't get Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines out of my head, for whatever reason. --Robert Wilonsky
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