Historicalarchived

TARDEC's Robot Helps Police, Bomb Squads

TANK-AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING CENTER

Five police departments across the country have begun using the TALON robot with new recoil percussion actuated nonelectric (PAN) disrupter mounts developed by the U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC). Developed by the Army and designed for military use, these stateside explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) units have purchased the PAN-TALON to provide standoff disruption capability for carrying out homeland security missions.

Applications

Military and Commercial Significance:
Police departments in Boca Raton, West
Palm Beach and Palm Beach, Fla.; El Paso,
Texas, and Los Angeles, Calif., are using the
TALON with disruptor mount for bomb detection
missions.
Based on the success of this EOD tool in
Operation Iraqi Freedom, 17 other police
departments have either asked TARDEC for
a PAN-TALON technology demonstration
or are awaiting grant approvals .
“Any time a TARDEC-developed innovation transitions to the civilian world, it is a great accomplishment,” said Dr. Richard Mc-Clelland, director of TARDEC. “The transition of the PAN mount is significant because it will directly impact the safety of those performing
Homeland Security missions.” TARDEC, in association with Foster-
Miller, Inc. (Waltham, Mass.) developed the recoil mitigating mount, which supports standard EOD PAN devices.
Once the mount is fixed to a small unmanned ground vehicle (SUGV) such as the TALON robot, police have the ability to defeat an improvised explosive device (IED) remotely from a safe standoff distance.
Without disruptor-mounted TALON, EOD soldiers must wear hot, heavy bomb suits to physically approach the device to deactivate with a tripod-mounted PAN disruptor.

Provenance

Original: https://dodtechmatch.com/dod/successstories/view.aspx?id=60177
Archived copy: Wayback Machine snapshot

This record was recovered from a public web archive of dodtechmatch.com and is preserved for historical reference. It may be outdated. Not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Contact details from the original listing have been withheld.