PITTSBURGH — Bomb squads in the United States are taking notice of what’s happening in the streets of Iraq.
Robots are keeping explosive ordnance disposal personnel out of harm’s way.
Robot manufacturers are finding more customers among first responders charged with investigating unattended bags in train stations, orphaned military explosives and rudimentary pipe bombs.
But other parts of the emergency services community have been slow to take up the technology.
Hazardous material response and special weapons and tactics teams can use robots, but members of these sectors either don’t know about the machines’ benefits, or don’t have the funds to buy them, experts have said.
Those first responders who have used robots swear by them.
“If you can save one life with the robot, it’s worth the money you pay for it,” Sgt. Tom Calabro, a member of the Houston SWAT team, said at the Robo Business conference.
His unit has used a robot for one year and he already has numerous anecdotes proving their worth.
They are mostly used in situations where criminals, or suicidal people, have barricaded themselves in buildings.
In these situations, gathering intelligence is key. Most often, these barricaded individuals are armed, and they sometimes have hostages. Booby-traps are also possibilities, he said. Previously officers had to do the reconnaissance themselves. Now robots are taking their place, and allowing the SWAT team to stay at safe distances.
His team recently sent a robot into a house where a chemist operating a methamphetamine lab had barricaded himself in a room. The robot was able to map out every room in the house except the one where the suspect was holed up.
“You can’t plan without intelligence,” Calabro said. “If we have to send in a team, we want to know what the layout of the house is.”
In another case, an armed and wounded burglar had escaped into his house and was keeping three of his children hostage. He swore he would come out shooting.
After negotiating the release of the children, the team sent in the robot. The suspect was so terrified of the machine, he immediately surrendered.
For Lt. James Melton, a haz-mat specialist with the Santa Ana, Calif., fire department, robots not only provide valuable reconnaissance, they buy time.
The fastest haz-mat teams take 20 minutes to put on their protective gear after arriving on a scene. But 40 minutes is more typical.
If there are victims inside a building, “the robots will be their salvation,” Melton said. Operators can send them into a toxic building within five minutes.
The fire department’s robot has a suite of sensors to determine what chemicals might be present. It can also carry a trailer with about 20 doses of nerve-agent antidotes. The robot can unhook the trailer, then use its gripper, or claw, to administer the shots.
The claw can be used to turn off valves that might be expelling gas or move chemicals in containers that might react with one another. It can also stick plugs on leaking tanks or other containers.
Yet there are many police and fire departments that cannot afford robots, Melton said.
“The city next door doesn’t have a robot. And they’re not getting a robot, either. The price is too prohibitive,” he added.
Helen Greiner, chairman of iRobot and manufacturer of the PackBot, said her company has sold less than 10 units to first responders.
Marty Foley, an executive with Foster-Miller, manufacturer of the Talon robot, said he has about 40 customers, which is small compared to the thousands of police and fire departments across the United States.
“You have to get people to understand what the applications are,” he said. “Twenty-five years ago, bomb squads wanted to continue wearing suits.” Now they are embracing the technology, he added.
Selling robots to these diverse communities is more challenging than selling to the military, Greiner said.
The Navy, for example, buys hundreds of EOD robots and distributes them to the other services. For the police and fire response markets, company representatives must go from department to department to make their pitches.
Large cities such as Los Angeles or New York might want a few robots, but these smaller jurisdictions will probably only buy one, she said.
And then there is the cost.
Foley said Department of Homeland Security grants are a major source of funding for some cities.
Cpl. Matt Strange, a member of the Pennsylvania State Police bomb squad, said if it weren’t for DHS funds “we would probably have lesser quality robots or maybe none at all.”
Federal requirements, along with the acceptance of the technology in the bomb disposal community, are pushing the EOD market forward. To be an FBI certified bomb disposal squad, such units are now required to have at least one robot, Strange said.
His unit has two robots: one large 600-pound machine that can carry x-ray equipment to peer into suspicious packages and a smaller Talon that can maneuver more easily inside buildings.
While the problem of improvised explosive devices is well known in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic bomb squads are busy as well.
Pennsylvania state patrol bomb squads respond to about 200 calls per year. These are cases where explosives are involved, and not bomb scare hoaxes, he said. Pipe bombs are relatively common. There are also cases of orphaned military ordnance and dynamite.
“We use them almost every chance we get … We do what we can with the robot before putting on a ‘dome of ignorance,’” he said. That is the nickname for the 80-plus pounds of protective bomb suit gear that is not only hot, but restricts movement and dulls the senses.
The bomb squad has loaned its Talon to a special emergency response team — the state patrol’s version of SWAT — to use in a barricade situation.
“I think on the SERT side they are coming around to see how useful robotics can be,” Strange said.
Melton, and others, said robot prices can be brought down if they weren’t constructed to meet military specifications. But the U.S. military, as the largest customer for ground robots, is driving the development of the robots that first responders are using.
Greiner said first responders are a secondary market for the PackBots.
“But as that market expands, they have their own user requirements. We are starting to look into bringing out a homeland security version,” she said. The domestic versions don’t have to be as rugged.
iRobot has partnered with Taser International to mount a nonlethal weapon onto a PackBot.
Calabro said mounting weapons on a robot has been discussed within the SWAT community, but he said the target tracking would have to be improved.
The first responders echoed what military EOD specialists have been saying about making the robots more effective. They all want more human-like grippers. They would like to see a three-dimensional view of what they are looking at through the view screen and have better communication links when the robot enters a building.
Melton said it is wrong to assume that first responders are not as tough on their robots as soldiers.
“We break things. We’re rough. We flip them over trying to do things they probably weren’t designed to do,” he said. “We will push the tool until we break the tool as long as we can justify that we saved a person’s life, their property or the environment.”
He would like to see less expensive plastic replacement parts that are easy to swap out when the machine inevitably breaks.
Beyond the cost factor, there is also acceptance in a first responder community that Allen Jones, vice president of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Ventures LLC, said is “notoriously averse to change.”
AMTV runs a Defense Department sponsored technology transfer program, FirstLink, which puts military hardware into the hands of first responders. Among the program’s efforts is the Navy robotics loan program. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego gives robots to state and local first responders to use for up to six months.
“They get to play with them first and figure out what they want to buy,” Jones said. Some manufacturers have donated robots to put in the program’s pool, and Jones encouraged other companies to follow suit.
The first responders are required to provide feedback and data to the companies on how the machines performed. But the bigger tradeoff might be expanding the market.
“Let them fall in love with the technology,” he said.
Meanwhile, the robotics industry as a whole is looking to expand beyond the niche military and homeland security markets.
iRobot is among those that sell the technology to the consumer market. It makes robots that vacuum floors and clean gutters.
Companies are finding that they can sell more robots if they market them in sectors other than defense and homeland security. Examples include submersible robots, which are touted as a way to improve port security. VideoRay LLC and Ocean Server Technology Inc. are two companies that are attempting to sell their undersea robots as a means to patrol harbors and check under hulls for explosives or contraband being smuggled into ports.
But company spokesmen at the conference said there are numerous other applications including oil exploration, scientific research and checking water quality.
Tony Diodato, chief technology officer at CSSRobotics, said he has been trying to sell security robots designed to patrol perimeters or keep watch inside buildings, but has had few customers.
Then the healthcare industry came calling. Hospitals have an acute need to efficiently deliver lab samples or food. It is costly and time consuming for a lab technician to take a single vial of blood to the other side of a hospital complex, he said. The company reprogrammed its security robots to autonomously deliver food and lab samples in medical complexes. Diodato already has one major hospital in Delaware as a customer, and he has several other requests for his services in the pipeline.
“Lab managers have said ‘if you build it, we will come.’ We’re getting further and further entrenched in the medical field,” Diodato said.
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