The government will allocate 3 billion rubles ($87 million) this year to develop robotic avatars that closely mimic human movements, a government official said.
The robots — which would operate based on a principle similar to the one featured in the blockbuster James Cameron movie "Avatar" — would allow their human operators to control minuscule motions of the highly sensitive machines, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told NTV television on Sunday.
"This would essentially mean adapting robotic technologies to the physics of human behavior," Rogozin said.
The Advanced Research Foundation, initiated by Rogozin, said last summer that it intended to develop robotic avatars to replace humans on the battlefield, calling the planned machines the "soldiers of the future."
The deputy prime minister also told NTV that the foundation was working on the creation of "robotic underwater cities" for the exploration of the Arctic Shelf.
