The quiet, suburban neighborhoods and strip malls that line Route 128, the main highway that circumscribes the Greater Boston area, hardly betray the area's high-tech firepower. Since the 1950s, this corridor has played host to seminal technology companies such as Digital Equipment Corp., Raytheon and Sun Microsystems.

Amidst this high-tech stew, the corridor has also become a hotbed for military robotics, particularly those that roll or even walk on terra firma. Companies such as Boston Dynamics, iRobot and QinetiQ, all live within about 10 miles of each other and manufacture the Big Dog, Packbot and TALON robots respectively.

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