Nothing made Army Lt. Col. Michael Evans happier than seeing mangled, twisted and charred explosive ordnance disposal robots sitting outside the repair facility at Camp Victory, Iraq.
“Every one of those damaged robots … equated to a team leader that was saved,” said the Army officer who helped oversee joint EOD operations in Iraq.
Robots have been credited with saving countless lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. In light of this success, the Navy has embarked on an ambitious program to build its next generation of counter-explosives machines.
The robots perform for their human operators the most dangerous task: neutralizing improvised explosive devices by going down range to serve as a specialist’s eyes to check out suspicious sites. Without them, EOD technicians would be forced to inspect potential bombs up close.
“That long walk in the bomb suit is a life and death decision that none of our operators take lightly,” Evans said at an Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference.
Since the beginning of operations in Iraq, three “commercial off-the–shelf” robots have been introduced into the fight and reached official “program of record” status, meaning they are in the Defense Department’s budget.
As for the next generation EOD robot, “We think we can get away from using what industry has at the time and modifying it to military requirements,” said Byron Brezina, robotics director of the naval EOD technology division. The three systems “were the right answer at the that time and continue to be the answer now,” he said. Industry answered the call for lighter, more advanced robots to tackle improvised explosive devices (IEDs), but it’s time for the Navy to start work on its own system from the ground up, he added.
The three commercial-off-the-shelf robots are iRobot’s Packbot, Foster-Miller’s Talon, and the BomBot, a toy truck-sized remotely controlled vehicle, manufactured by Innovative Response Technologies Inc. Each Talon and Packbot — including sensors and other associated gear — costs between $80,000 and $150,000. Meanwhile, the Navy’s legacy robot, the remote ordnance neutralization system (RONS), continues to be widely used.
The Navy, which is the service responsible for fielding all U.S. military EOD robots, would like to begin producing its new robot by 2012 to 2013, Brezina said.
“We’d really like to take a [technological] leap and field something five years from now,” he said.
There will be several variants of the new advanced EOD robot, which he described as “a family of systems that are scalable.”
Individually, the four systems currently in use perform fine, but they are all based on proprietary technologies and cannot work together, he said. Flexibility should come in the form of modular systems that have “plug and play capability,” or the ability to easily add features, he added.
Since RONS’ introduction 15 years ago, the Navy has learned many lessons on what works and what doesn’t, he said.
For example, electronic jammers — designed to prevent insurgents from using radios and cell phones to send signals to detonate IEDs — interfere with wireless remote control.
And operators generally prefer wireless controls to tethers.
“The electromagnetic environment compatibility issue is here to stay, [so] we’ve got to have better wireless means of communication,” Brezina said.
The current systems also have their own control interfaces, meaning operators must train on four different panels.
“I can’t imagine us fielding this next robot without a common controller,” he said.
The Navy is currently working on “analysis of alternatives” reports, which should tell them what technologies are needed, along with what capabilities industry and academia have to offer. The office has already held one industry day and conducted about 40 one-on-one meetings with members of the robot development community.
Brezina is telling them “to try to think five years out. Obviously, everybody is focused on Iraq.”
The Navy envisions a two-year technology development phase from 2008 to 2009, with a development and demonstration phase roughly from 2010 to 2012. Production is slated to begin around 2012 to 2013. No decision has been made as to whether the next generation robot will replace the four systems, he said.
The Navy is continuing to improve the RONS and three smaller off-the-shelf systems with night vision and chemical and nuclear material sensors.
While the three commercial-off-the-shelf products have received the most press coverage, RONS are still in use worldwide. EOD officials at the conference showed a video of one in Iraq hauling the carcass of a dead dog in the middle of a road, where it exploded out of harm’s way. Insurgents are known to hide IEDs inside the carcasses.
At 700 pounds, the larger RONS can pull heavier objects, although its size makes it harder to transport to hotspots. The Talon and PackBot weigh 100 and 50 pounds respectively, and can be carried by one or two technicians.
The 15-pound BomBot recently reached the “program of record status.” More than 2,300 have been fielded so far. Based on remote-controlled toy trucks, the BomBot is designed to quickly send pictures back to EOD specialists. It moves at 35 miles per hour and fits in a hand-carried suitcase.
Brezina said his office has resisted pressure to add more features to the BomBot. The idea is to keep it cheap and expendable so operators want to use it in high-risk situations.
There are more PackBots and Talons in the pipeline as well. About 800 have been fielded so far, with more than 500 budgeted in the next two years.
Marine Corps Maj. Joseph Parker, who ran the shop at Camp Victory where broken or battle damaged robots are repaired, said 155 robots were destroyed in fiscal year 2006. However, technicians were able to rebuild 105 of them and send them back in the field within 72 hours.
It one case, a shaped charged shot from an IED struck a BomBot stowed in the back of a humvee. The deadly projectile deflected off the protective case, sending it harmlessly away from an EOD technician sitting next to it.
The BomBot was declared a total loss, but another life was saved.
“It still did its job – regardless,” Parker said.
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