The current prototype model of the PRC-E8

ABERDEEN, MD – The commander of the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center has officially notified the Pentagon of further delays to an experimental program to deploy robotic First Sergeants to remote outposts in Afghanistan.

Colonel Gordon Graham, who only assumed command of Aberdeen in mid-August, announced on Monday that the Portable Rocker-Chevron Eight, or PRC-E8 program, is still at least six months away from a workable prototype and $20 million over budget.

"At the rate we're going, I think we're going to have trouble just getting the PRC-E8 into service before the planned end of combat operations in 2014," Colonel Graham wrote in an e-mail to Army Chief of Staff General Raymond Odierno.