Companies Work to Save Bomb-Clearing Robots

(Sept. 1) -- When improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, became the weapon of choice in the early days of the Iraq war, the Pentagon rushed electronic jammers to the field to save soldiers' lives by disrupting the wireless signals that often triggered the deadly roadside bombs. The military also began sending robots designed to help soldiers in the dangerous job of dismantling the bombs.

The jammers, and the robots, are credited with saving countless soldiers' lives. Now, in an unusual turn of events, companies are trying to save the robots' lives, too.

At a recent robot conference in Denver, robot-maker QinetiQ displayed a poster concept for its Talon robot equipped with a Thor jammer. The electronic jamming device, typically used to protect people, would create an invisible bubble of protection around the robot while still allowing it to communicate with a human operator.

"Hundreds of them [robots] are being blown up," Nathan Desmeule, who works for QinetiQ North America, told AOL News at the conference. The Thor jammer would provide a level of protection that robots like the Talon don't currently have.

The number of robots being used in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone from the hundreds to the thousands in a few short years. As those numbers increase, so too do the number of robot "fatalities."

According to one Defense Department briefing, 150 robots were destroyed during 2005. But those numbers appear to have escalated rapidly. One military robotics official put the total number of robots destroyed in Afghanistan in 2007 alone at 1,600. The total number of bomb-clearing robots that have been destroyed in the line of duty may well be in the thousands.

Cheryl Irwin, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to provide updated figures on the number of robots destroyed in the line of duty, citing operational security concerns.

The explosives-clearing robots have become so integral to military personnel that there are reports of bomb technicians giving the machines names, like Scooby, and awarding them medals. But for the Pentagon, the issue is not sentiment but money: Each explosive ordnance-disposal robot can cost more than $100,000.

QinetiQ isn't the only company trying to save robots. Jason Dean and his company, Conceptual Robotics, have experimented with putting a carbon dioxide laser on a robot, creating what he calls a "laserbot." Rather than approaching the bomb directly, the laserbot directs the energy beam at the explosive from a safe distance, slowly heating it up until it's disabled.

Dean described 2007 as a "climactic point," where people understood that even though robots saved human lives, that didn't mean they were expendable. If enough robots were blown up, they would quickly become a financial liability.

That was also the year, he says, when his nephew, who was deployed to Iraq, called to tell him that insurgents were purposely targeting robots, detonating IEDs as soon as the robots approached them. By using a laser to detonate the bombs from a distance of 25 or 30 meters, the robot would avoid destruction, Dean said.

So far, however, the Pentagon hasn't funded any of Dean's work, though he's spent two years pitching his idea to the Defense Department agency in charge of funding counter-IED work.

"It's a tough nut to crack," he said.