In a hostile situation, nobody wants to poke their head above a wall or round a doorway to see the enemy. A far more appealing option would be to take a miniature reconnaissance robot from your pocket and throw it into the danger area to act as your eyes.

Okay, so the Recon Scout isn’t exactly pocket-sized — its dimensions are similar to those of a beer can — but it is still the ultimate covert operator. The dumbbell-shaped device is a shade over seven inches long and weighs 1.2lb.

Once the Scout lands, the onboard camera transmits real-time video to a handheld control unit. If the light level is low, the camera automatically switches to infrared.

The Scout’s best trick, however, is that it can be quietly manoeuvred by remote control to provide a better view of the robot’s surroundings, even deep inside a building or cave. The indoor range is 100ft; the outdoor, three times that.

The parent company, ReconRobotics, says it has sold devices to several British police forces, including Bedfordshire, Sussex and Norfolk constabularies. Bedfordshire confirmed it had recently bought Recon Scouts but said it was "unable to discuss them any further as they are operationally sensitive".

ReconRobotics says it has also provided units of its new off-road Scout XT robot, pictured right, which has spikier wheels, to the British armed forces. The firm is US-based but run by Alan Bignall, a Briton who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. Bignall spent five years working for Rolls-Royce’s aero engines division before moving to America in 1979.

More than 50 police Swat teams in the US already use Recon’s original Scout IR robot, according to the company, and it has just announced a $1.35m (£800,000) order from the US military for 150 of them.

So is the Scout the ideal tool for troops in Afghanistan? The Sunday Times put one through its paces in a series of tests. Dropped from a height of about 20ft onto concrete, the Scout — made largely of titanium and aircraft-grade aluminium — bounced and continued about its business. It also shrugged off being flung in an arc across a car park.

The Scout proved surprisingly easy to manoeuvre around a succession of obstacles, and the video footage it beamed back was of good quality when viewed on the control unit’s 3.5in screen, even in direct sunlight. It cleverly kept the camera oriented slightly upwards, and even though the Scout sits low to the ground, the field of view was surprisingly wide.

As soon as the light level dropped — for instance, when the device was under a car — the Scout XT immediately switched to infrared mode. Bignall says there is no reason future models could not feature chemical or drug detection sensors to act as robotic sniffer dogs.

The big issue is, of course, the cost. The Scout is considered an off-the-shelf item, which means ReconRobotics will sell one to anybody from a country deemed “friendly” by the US government. A Scout XT will set you back $13,000 (£7,900), which includes the control unit and a one-year warranty, or you can snap up the previous IR model, which works properly only on flat ground, for the bargain price of $9,000 (£5,500).

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