Cnet News

South Korea’s military has deployed machine-gun-toting robots along the heavily fortified border with North Korea, and a related promo video delivers more shock and awe than Kim Jong-Il singing the blues.

Samsung Techwin and other firms developed the SGR-1 robots, and they have been installed on a trial basis at a post in the central part of the Demilitarized Zone, Yonhap News quoted military officials as saying.

The $200,000 SGR-1s are remote-operated sentry bots that work in tandem with cameras and radar systems. They can detect intruders with heat and motion sensors, and challenge them through audio and video communications. The bots can also fire on targets with 5.5-millimeter machine guns and 40-millimeter automatic grenade launchers.

The officials didn’t say how many bots were set up, but they will be installed throughout the 160-mile DMZ if the trial, which runs through the end of this year, is successful. Tensions along the DMZ are already high following the sinking of the South’s warship Cheonan in March.




  1. Oracle says:

    I love these. Let’s install them in the Bayview District of San Francisco, and the entire East Bay. After all, Oakland just canned some of those fallible human cops….
    Let’s name these things…hmmm…. “The Oscar Grant Memorial Cop”.

    Just don’t go out at night.

  2. yankinwaoz says:

    Two words…. “Maginot Line”

    Don’t get too cocky there SK. War never goes as planned.

  3. green says:

    great idea to keep dogs from pissing on the lawn. Does it take hollowpoints….

  4. cgp says:

    Hey the S Koreans will have a huge market for this. I can hear the cell phones from northern ir(at)eland beeping now.

  5. sargasso_c says:

    Who would want to hack that?

  6. Ah_Yea says:

    I wonder if it talks like Arnold…

  7. endigo says:

    I wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to replenish the ammo.

  8. Oracle says:

    #7. No problem if there are two of them side by side….

  9. chuck says:

    Sounds like South Korea has figured out how to secure its borders. Why can’t the U.S.?

    OTOH, I hope they don’t extend this technology to speed cameras.

  10. tcc3 says:

    Target Acquired…..Are you still there?

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=CKVuPUY9D-A

  11. Ah_Yea says:

    #9. Simple, North Koreans don’t vote in South Korea.

  12. Gilgamesh says:

    Shall… we… play… a game?

  13. Father says:

    Is it an act of war to shoot at a robot?

  14. Improbus says:

    I am sure nothing can go wrong:

  15. bobbo, student of the haiku says:

    Then Skynet went Live
    Armed Robots prowling the streets
    Silly Hoomans – Run!

  16. Buzz says:

    Unfortunately a squad of brush removers in the DMZ were cut down by the Samsung Techwin guard devices which were inadvertently left on as the squad started to work. 12,394 workers were killed.

  17. bill says:

    Time for some ‘actual combat’ testing!

    Soon to be an iPhone App! I’m sure!

  18. Lou Dobbs says:

    Hey, anyone got the Arizona governor’s number? This gives me an idea!

  19. deowll says:

    SK has already figured out NK shoots to kill with out warning so they are trying to stick the machines out front to keep the real killers a little further back.

  20. MikeN says:

    Can we pull the US troops out now? Why aren’t Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, and other liberals protesting this neverending war? And how about the war in Kosovo and Bosnia?

  21. stopher2475 says:

    #21 Gee I don’t know. Probably because US soldiers aren’t being killed in Korea. I do agree with you though. I’m all for not spending our dollars on other country’s wars.

  22. LDA says:

    Is it nuke proof?

  23. jbellies says:

    Just what we need. Doomsday robots guarding the border with a psycho nuclear state. Where is Dr. Amor Extraño when you need him?

    And pity the squirrels. Unless they’re Eastern Gray Squirrels, in which case fire at will.

  24. gorillafwarfare says:

    The Taliban’s machine gun carrying monkeys are
    much more cost effective and the wave of the future. And are impervious to EMP and can
    throw feces when out of ammo.

  25. Somebody_Else says:

    Can we fire the border patrol for incompetence and stick a few of these on the Mexican border?

    @ #2, How exactly are the N. Koreans supposed to go around the DMZ?

  26. GregAllen says:

    >> MikeN said, on July 14th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
    >> Why aren’t Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, and other liberals protesting this neverending war? And how about the war in Kosovo and Bosnia?

    You live in your own little la-la-land if you think we liberals like these never-ending wars.

    Closing our foreign bases and decommissioning our foreign fleets would do wonders for the US economy and make us liberals happy.

    If you’re looking for glaring hypocricy — look no further than the tea-baggers.

    They HOWL and WEEP about the debt but I’ve never heard a single one propose major cuts to the military, a huge cause of our debt.

  27. aslightlycrankygeek says:

    #26,

    No one is accusing liberals of not liking the war. It is that you are not protesting it like you used to. You don’t hate the war as much as you love Obama, and you don’t hate the war as much as you hate Bush.

    You can want reduced spending and want it in areas other than the military. We had huge military spending in 2000-2001 and were creating surpluses. You could argue that the military is one of the biggest and easiest things to cut, but you can’t say a person is contradicting himself for supporting one and not the other.
    You cannot logically think the war is worth protesting when one person is president, but suddenly not worth protesting when a different person is president who is continuing the same wars and even expanding one. This is an obvious contradiction.
    See the difference?

  28. Uncle Patso says:

    Just don’t name any of them Napoleon!


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