The US Navy announced a new robotics research facility this week located within the existing Naval Research Laboratory's main site in Washington D.C. The Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research, or LASR, was created to support NRL research in "robotics and autonomous systems of interest to the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense," wrote LASR director Alan C. Shultz, mentioning that a familiar sounding autonomous firefighting robot would be among the lab's projects. The new facility is kitted out with a litany of realistic environmental
