TASER-armed robots keep police out of harm's way

June 3, 2007 Love them or hate them, TASER stun guns have become an essential and effective part of law enforcement armory. Perhaps their main drawback has been that even the long-range wireless shotgun-mounted TASER XREP puts a police officer within 30 feet of a potentially dangerous suspect before they're in range. Now, a new partnership between TASER and iRobot will see the construction of TASER-wielding robots that can be sent in to incapacitate violent suspects without ever exposing police officers to the risk of harm. What's more, TASER has released their Remote Area Denial (TRAD) system, an unmanned device that operates in a network to identify and incapacitate intruders in secured areas. It all points towards an interesting future with embedded moral implications; how long will it be until suspects are told "you have 15 seconds to comply?"

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