What are the automated weapons called that try to shoot the player in Portal?

The automated weapons in Portal are called Sentry Turrets. Aperture Science Sentry Turrets are stationary security robots designed to detect targets and fire machine guns when they enter the turret’s line of sight.

Their distinctive appearance—slender white shells, tripod legs, a single central eye, and polite warning phrases—contrasts with their lethal behavior. A turret may calmly announce that it is searching before opening fire, creating one of Portal’s signature blends of comedy and danger.

Turrets are not the same as the game’s lasers or its various personality cores. Lasers are environmental puzzle devices, while turrets actively track and attack Chell. Players can defeat or bypass them by knocking them over, blocking their vision, using portals, or redirecting them with objects.

Portal 2 expands the idea with defective turrets, including defective personality-driven variants and a turret opera near the ending. The series also jokes that Aperture turrets may have been marketed as home-defense products.