I) IntroductionRobotic technology has enabled the US military to use autonomous robots (or unmanned systems, UMS) in modern warfare. During the war against Iraq, the American army sent 12,000 ground robots at the end of 2008 (PW Singer). One of the most popular robots used in Iraq is the iRobot Packbot, an unmanned ground vehicle capable of detecting and destroying improvised explosive devices. Exploiting robots in war can save the lives of many human soldiers. Additionally, robots are faster, have greater endurance, high precision and immunity to chemical and biological weapons (Ronald Arkin). In the National Defense Act of 2001, the U.S. Congress, clearly impressed by the potential of robots to save lives on the battlefield, established the requirement that one-third of ground vehicles and one-third of aircraft The army's deep attack will be robotized within ten years. Therefore, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's "Integrated Unmanned Systems Roadmap for Fiscal Year 2009-2034", the four categories that will be targeted will be reconnaissance and surveillance, identification and designation of targets, mine countermeasures and explosive ordnance disposal, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear detection (Stew Magnuson). For now, most robot soldiers in the field are not fully autonomous. They are controlled by human soldier operators. However, the pressure of wars and the superior advantage of robots capable of making decisions on their own will shift the interest in the development of autonomous robots. On the battlefield, the time required to decide whether to act or not is too short to make it impractical for a robot to have to send a signal to an operator and wait for permission to fire (Ronald Arkin). ..... middle of article ......gner, A.R. and Duncan, B., “Liability and Lethality of Unmanned Systems: Tips for Pre-Mission Ethical Responsibility.” GVU Technical Report GIT-GVU-09-01, GVU Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. Asaro, PM, “Robots and Liability from a Legal Perspective.” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Rome, Italy. April 2007.Magnuson, S., “Robo Ethics”. National Defense (Volume 94, Number 672, November 2009), 28-29. Singer, PW, “Military robots and the laws of war”. New Atlantic: A Journal of Technology & Society (Volume 23, Winter 2009), 25-45. Sparrow, R., “Building a Better WarBot: Ethical Issues in Designing Unmanned Systems for Military Applications.” Ethics of Science and Engineering (Volume 15, Number 2 / June 2009), 169-187. Sparrow, R., “Killer Robots”. Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 24, no. 1, 2006.