Through the years I’ve seen a good deal of ground bots being developed for troops in the zone. But I’ve never seen one as seemingly resilient and simply functional as the Recon Robotics Recon Scout XT.
Weighing in at 1.2lbs and able to withstand a drop from three stories up, the Recon Scout XT can shoot real time video day or night. Its signal goes through walls no problem and the controller is no bigger than a standard company command radio.
So far Army Special Forces and SEALs have some, as well as some civilian law enforcement agencies. Looks like a good piece of gear for Joes and grunts too.
– Christian
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Cool stuff.
Works well in room-to-room, but one for field would be good as well. A camera, thrown into the air, deploy a chute (or a balloon, depending on how long you want it up) and generally float around and broadcast video feed. If you’re feeling generous, devise a steering system? (Either with fans or attaching flaps to “glide”.)
13 grand though?
I hope to God you get more than one when you buy that thing. I said this when I found out the Marine ITV growler/motor towing jeep cost $200 grand (or $1 million per unit with the motor as wikipedia is saying)….”a bunch of engineering students with 20 grand in university grants and corporate sponsors could put this thing together as a senior year design project.”
Neat design, not really sure if it’s G.I. practical though.
Looks like it’s confined to very short range use and primarily for room-clearing – for which it would be really good. Short range because it is a (first) floor-hugger; it can’t climb stairs.
Outside it may get blinded or hung up in grass, mud or blocked by a curb/sidewalk. Anyone who ever cleared a quala may understand what I mean.
OTOH, if cheap enough, seed these by the dozens via UAVs to gather visual intel (for LZs for example).
Most of the cost is probably the control doohickey.
I don’t think it needs to be able to climb stairs. You can just throw it up there to the top.
I think the whole idea is to just give guys sort of a floating eyeball so they can see what is down that hallway, in the next room, etc. You don’t need it to be completely autonomous.
Also known as the magical grenade converter -
you throw into the room a $10,000 toy and out pops a $4 grenade. Endless fun.
I like these really simple and easy to use systems. Definitely the most useful room clearing device I’ve seen, the fact that it can be thrown is both simpler and much more practical some larger, funky shaped device that can crawl up stairs. The control is the best part I think, that is the simplest control device ever.
The only improvements I can suggest are a smaller more efficient controller with an internal patch antenna and lipo battery (thinking i-phone sized, but keep the joystick) and to give the thing more speed, piezoelectric gyro for stabilization (no getting disoriented after high speed wall-bumps) and maybe a button that flings it into the air for obstacle avoidance, by using that little rear foot.
“1,2 lbs”, huh?
Can it defend itself against being picked up by the enemy and being thrown into a trash bin?
We used one of these in Iraq in 04-05. Used it to check out suspected IEDs. So its been out for a while.