The US military is gradually edging closer to unleashing a new model army of robot soldiers on the battlefield.

Robots are expected to become a major fighting force within US army ranks in less than a decade.

Technological advances predict them to hunt and kill enemies while their human controllers remain a safe distance away, carefully monitoring proceedings through a laptop.

The €97bn Future Combat Systems contract is the biggest in US military history and officials are making rapid progress.

While not yet ready to be used as a fighting force, hundreds of robots have been deployed to dig up roadside bombs in Iraq, scour caves in Afghanistan and guard weapons depots.

By April, an armed version of the bomb-disposal robot, capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute, will be at work in Baghdad.

The one metre-tall “soldiers” will be equipped with tank tracks, night vision and mounted automatic weapons.

“They don’t get hungry, they’re not afraid, they don’t forget their orders,” Gordon Johnson, from the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon, told the New York Times.

“They don’t care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.”

Experts say the new generation of soldiers will be increasingly capable of thinking, seeing and reacting like humans.

But the developments will be gradual. The first forces will be remote-controlled, resembling over-sized toy trucks.

Automated forces could save lives but the cost is expected to drive the US defence budget up by almost 20%.

The annual costs of buying new weapons will rise 52%.

But while progress has been rapid, critics warn there will be many questions to answer before the military programmes machinery to kill, trusting science with human life.

The Pentagon believes it could take until 2035 to develop a robot that looks, thinks and fights like a soldier.

A third of the ground vehicles and a third of deep-strike aircraft in the military are expected to become robotic by 2010.