When the rockets’ red glare is at eye level and the bombs aren’t bursting in air, but in cars, it’s time to call in tEODor, the world’s standard-bearer for remote bomb disposal robots.
Explosive ordinance disposal (EOD), real Hurt Locker shit, is one of the most dangerous jobs in the military. Traditionally, it involved a single technician strapped to the hilt with body armour trying to defuse improvised explosives by hand. But since Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Peter’ Miller designed the Wheelbarrow in 1972 in response to the extensive use of improvised bombs by the IRA in Northern Ireland, remote EOD robots have been the go-to tool for bomb disposal while minimising technician risk.
More than 350 dual-tracked tEODors are in service in 39 countries worldwide. This bot is incredibly manoeuvrable, able to climb 45-degree slopes, and features a unique six-axis manipulator with over 2.7m of reach that can automatically swap in one of three defusing tools (shotguns, disrupters, tearing hooks, window breakers, whathaveyou). Or it can use up to five ballistic distupters in parallel. The arm can support up to 100kg in its grasp. tEODor is equipped with an advanced vision system comprised of dual, colour drive cameras, a forward-facing PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) camera and a fourth camera at the end of its gripper arm.
[Army Technology – Kuchera Engineering (.pdf) – Telerob – Wheelbarrow Wiki]
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