The Scorpion robot can open car doors, remove screws, dash through rough terrain, climb stairs, navigate tight corridors, and even operate submerged in water. The U.S. Army may buy 3,000 of them. Yeah, you can insert a quip about Skynet and the Apocalypse here.

The Scorpion — which was revealed yesterday by its manufacturer Endeavor Robotics — is a multi-purpose robot that may soon join units in the field to assist soldiers on the battlefield in a variety of purposes, from exploration to Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

In fact, according to the manufacturer, the Scorpion is an open architecture so it can be adapted to any purpose imaginable.

The robot is one of the two finalists in the competition to win the CRS-I US Army program— the Common Robotic System-Individual — an initiative that wants to put a cybercritter in each fighting units, with a designated human robot operator carrying one of these beasts in a rucksack just like there’s soldier designated to carry and operate the radio.

According to Endeavor Robotics, the Scorpion can be deployed in seconds and its design allows it to travel through any terrain and even work submerged. It can also recover from falls, putting itself back in the right position.



The company claims that Scorpion is made of lightweight composites, and each unit can be repaired with parts manufacturered on the field with a 3D printer.

It has multiple high definition cameras that feed its signals to a touchscreen universal controller. Endeavor says that the controller can plug into multiple robotic units as well as unmanned aircraft.

Scorpion is not the only robot that Endeavor is making for the U.S. Army. There’s its big brother, a robotic unmanned ground vehicle called Ripsaw. This vehicle is being developed by Endeavor and Howe & Howe Technologies to win the US Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle Program.

So, what was that you said about Skynet again?