Top War Tech #5: Talon Robots

Improvised Explosive Devices are the biggest killers of U.S. troops in Iraq ... and one of the biggest killer of IEDs is Foster-Miller's Talon robot.

"It's an excellent robot, and I would rate it as being the best one in theater," ordnance disposal Airman Robert Wester told an Air Force reporter. But how does the Talon compare to other robots -- say, the bestselling iRobot?

"The Baghdad bomb squad used their iRobots to decorate their shop," Noah reported after an embed with an Army ordnance-disposal unit a couple years back. "Not far away, at the U.S. military's central robot depot for Iraq, the iRobots sat on shelves, serenely gathering dust, while Foster-Miller's Talon robots would come back, scarred and in pieces, after being chewed up by a bomb."

The Navy seems to agree. According to the Boston Globe, the service has just doubled its contract for Talons:

Foster-Miller, an engineering, manufacturing, and technology development firm, said the contract administered by the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division has been increased from $63.9 million to $150 million to accommodate the purchase of additional robots and replacement parts. The company noted that war zone "Robot Hospitals" are repairing more than 400 bomb-damaged robots a week to put them back into service.

By David Axe, September 18th 2007