Three Sydney University PhD students who developed Terminator-style robots will soon see their technology trialled by US Marines sharpshooters in a $57 million coup.

Alex Brooks, Alex Makarenko and Tobias Kaupp have been plugging away on the robots for eight years at their company, Marathon Robotics, which is based at Sydney's Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh.

The Rover robots, the first such "smart targets" to be adopted for training exercises by the US military, are armoured autonomous robots that look, move and behave like real people. Australian troops are already using them for training.

Teams of the robots can execute complex pre-planned scenarios and are intelligent enough to scatter and run for cover when a buddy robot is shot.