An Alabama company has built one of the most ginormous robots the Army could ever want: a mini-tank that drives itself. Now to sell the Army on a bomb-fighting ‘bot the ground service actually once funded.

The machine in the video above is the Acer. Built by Mesa Robotics, it’s a tracked ground robot that weighs a whopping 4,500 lbs. and is about the size of a Bobcat loader or European electric coupe. Mesa considers it a one-stop shop for all the Army’s ground-robot needs, from stopping insurgent bombs to acting as a pack mule, with human control strictly optional. And yes, that is the s...