Navy begins work on next-generation bomb disposal robot.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: UPFRONT

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 dose.

"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...