It's no wonder political and military leaders are increasingly resting their futures on unmanned systems. From the mature Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) circling the skies above our troops (and enemies) in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the embryonic cargo haulers and unmanned ground vehicles being developed in academic and industry labs, future military operations are clearly heavily dependent on robots. Yet, for all the use robots are seeing in current combat operations around the globe, and for all the money being spent on their development and acquisition, there is no clearly articulated and agreed upon roadmap for their future growth and development.
This essay seeks to fill that void by using a commonly accepted framework for understanding the roles for robotic devices, overlaying it with the current state of robots and anticipated future development, and plotting out a logical end state. But first, to understand all of this, it's necessary to start by looking at a much simpler creature: the fruit fly.