In Afghanistan, a new robosoldier goes to war

A squad of heavily armed American soldiers lines up single file outside a mud-walled compound in eastern Afghanistan, ready to burst inside.

Just around the corner, technicians boot up Fester, a tank-like robot the size of a suitcase. An order comes over the radio: The soldiers are to hold their positions, but the robot is authorized to enter the building.

A crowd of curious Afghans watches as Fester zips backward, fixes his electronic eyeballs on an open doorway, lurches forward, and blunders into a wooden beam.

The villagers erupt into giggling fits.

But for the US military, Fester is no laughing matter; he's among the vanguard in a new type of warfare. In fact, the Afghan theater has been a testing ground for a variety of futuristic technologies.

Sitting in the broiling sun, US Army Col. Bruce Jette, the head of the robotics team, is both triumphant and apologetic: "Today is the first time conventional forces have ever employed robots in a wartime environment."

Fester has his clumsy moments, and the high metal content of some of the caves in the area has confounded his sophisticated communications systems, but when engineers sort out the kinks, robots like Fester could revolutionize the way foot soldiers fight wars.

The radio-controlled, reconnaissance robosoldier can climb stairs, turn somersaults and roll along at about 9 m.p.h. Shockproof and waterproof, he has survived a plunge from a second-story window. Most important, Fester won't die if he's shot while exploring a cave or poking through a suspicious building.

Col. Jette's robotic comrade began proving his mettle after Sept. 11, when he probed the wreckage of the World Trade Center to test structural soundness.

"The same robot that helped with the recovery effort at the World Trade Center is now in Afghanistan trying to track down the people that did it," says Tom Frost, senior technical manager at iRobot, the Somerville, Mass., firm that manufactures a line of machines they call PackBots, of which the nicknamed Fester is a prototype.

Terrestrial machines are only the most recent gadgets to be deployed in Afghanistan.

In a historic first, an unmanned aerial drone, the Predator, launched a Hellfire antitank missile at an enemy target. The low-flying Predator, operated by the CIA, has been indispensable in disrupting command-and-control structures because its "eyes" make it hard for Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants to congregate even in small groups without being seen. The war in Afghanistan also saw the first operational flight of the Global Hawk, an Air Force unmanned surveillance plane that soars above 60,000 feet, loaded with high-tech snooping devices.

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