HAMMELBURG, May 19 On the outside, it looks like a normal SUV. But the prototype “autonomous robot car” — fitted with sensors and scanners, multifocal camera systems and powerful computers — might one day help avoid military fatalities from bombings and ambushes — or so its designers hope.

Researchers presented the so-called MuCar-3 at the European Land Robot Trial this week in Germany, where the world's innovators were pitching ideas to military evaluators from the United States, Europe and Japan.

The MuCar-3 can independently follow a lead car, as in a military convoy, and even stop or back up when the lead car does so. It is a step toward providing military commanders with a robotic system that will keep troops out of harm's way whenever possible.

But there are still a few problems to solve, according to the evaluators at the Robot Trial conference, being held near the central German city of Hammelburg.

Around the world, armies already use about 10,000 different remote-controlled robot systems for surveillance, reconnaissance or bomb disposal _ as seen in the Oscar-winning film “The Hurt Locker.”

Experts are still waiting for a breakthrough on ground robots to fulfil simple tasks without human guidance. Military commanders are not exactly waiting for something out of the movies — today's priorities don't require sending anything like a Star Wars-like R2 unit or Terminator robot into action, German Army Chief Werner Freers said.

“We are looking for pragmatic solutions that would make life easier for our soldiers in military missions,” he said.

Convoy solutions — like the MuCar-3, developed by the military's academy, the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich — could free soldiers from having to move supplies, a stressful and dangerous job in countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.

“This is something we are able to do,” said Henrik Christensen, director at Georgia Tech Center for Robotics.—AP