The Boston Globe has a story today about Bedford, MA-based iRobot, and how the company is working on improved technology for its PackBot line of battlefield robots.

According to the report, iRobot has received a grant from the US Department of Defense's Joint Ground Robotics Enterprise, but the company declined to say how much the grant was worth.

And staying with the military robotics theme, a Star-Ledger piece that appears on NJ.com describes how engineers at Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, NJ are working on a couple of wheeled robotic vehicles that are designed to help save soldiers' lives.

The Star-Ledger quotes Bhavanjot Singh, project officer at Picatinny Arsenal, who tells the paper that the two vehicles, the MS1 and MS2, are modified versions of the "Ripsaw."

The Ripsaw is a high-speed, tracked vehicle designed by Howe and Howe Technologies specifically for US Army unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) Application. The Ripsaw was recently awarded Popular Science Magazine's "Invention of the Year" honors.

According to the article in the Star Ledger, Picatinny engineers are looking to integrate a weapons package. The Ripsaw can reportedly be fitted with an M-240 machine gun, or a non-lethal variant that could be used for crowd disbursement.

According to pictures on the Howe and Howe Web site, the Ripsaw is no shrinking violet. For a full gallery of the pictures we've sampled here, click through to this page or this page.