The US Army is working on a range of robots that could be seen on the battlefield in the near future.

According to The Associated Press, military planners and robot designers are trying to improve devices based on lessons learnt in Afghanistan, where robots saw their first significant military action.

PackBots, build by iRobot, have already been used at a cave complex in Afghanistan. The robots sent video footage back to the troops, thus keeping the men themselves out of range of the enemy.

Another development in the pipeline is a military robot much smaller and lighter than the PackBot. The device weighs less than 5lb and can be thrown over walls or through windows in order to find out what is going on inside.

Planners are trying out a number of robots at the army's Military Operations in Urban Terrain centre at Fort Benning, Georgia, where soldiers train to fight in a mock city.

"The best I can say at this point is that the army in general is aggressively looking at applying robots in all future operations," said one officer involved.