"Whether it be firefighting, whether it be first responders or disaster response, unmanned systems allow that human being to be able do their mission with an extension of their hands, their eyes and their ears."

Remote-controlled land rovers can detonate bombs or buried land mines. Edison Hudson of iRobot says some robots swim and can monitor ocean pollution.

"We can put them in the ocean and they'll swim for eight or nine months, collecting data," says Hudson.

Robotic 'man'

At the convention, the U.S. Government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, displayed a state-of-the-art robotic "man."

"DARPA has a history of inventing things like the Arpanet - which was the father of the Internet in the 1960s - Saturn 5 rockets, Stealth aircraft," says Robert Mandelbaum, DARPA's project manager.

DARPA's "robotic man" is the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation program, or ARM. Instead of depending on remote-control, ARM can actually look at some blocks, find one with a special pattern, and move it to a new location. Mandelbaum says more challenging tasks lie ahead.

"Pick up a gym bag, unzip it, reach inside, feel around without visual feedback, and find an object that's inside the gym bag."

Some day, a DARPA robot might find a hidden bomb or help a disabled person select a shirt and button it.

To advance the technology, DARPA plans to let members of the pubic write software for ARM, then sign onto the Internet and watch a model of ARM perform the task.