Bomb-sniffing robots put to test in Iraq

Robots range in size from tiny — 1.5-pound ones carrying cameras are tossed into buildings to search for insurgents — to brute — 110-pound versions move rubble and lift debris.

Fido is an upgrade of PackBot, a 52-pound robot with rubber treads, lights, video cameras that zoom and swivel, obstacle-hurdling flippers and jointed manipulator arms with hand-like grippers designed to disable or destroy bombs. Each costs $165,000.

Army Staff Sgt. Shawn Baker, 26, of Olean, N.Y., has helped detect and disable roadside bombs during two tours in Iraq. Before the robots were available, he and fellow soldiers would stand back as far as possible with a rope and drag hooks over the suspect devices in hopes of disarming or detonating them.

Two soldiers were killed that way, Baker said. No one in his unit has been hurt or killed while disarming bombs since the robots arrived.

“The science and technology of this has been way out in front of the production side,” Thomasmeyer said. “We’re going to start to see a payoff for all the science and technology advancements.”

IRobot posted $189 million in sales last year, up 33 percent from 2005. Its military business grew 60 percent to about $76 million. Bob Quinn, general manager of Foster-Miller, said his company has contracts of $320 million for military robots and that its business has doubled every year for the past four years.

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