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DIY Ordnance Disposal With An RC Truck
kpw10 writes "My company, Tackle Design, put together a do it yourself ordnance disposal robot for use by one of the partners in our company, currently serving in Iraq. It is a very simple solution costing only about $1,000, but it performs the same functions as the super-expensive robots issued by the military. We looking to see if we can get more of these devices over there - particularly as the treat of IEDs seems to be on the rise. We're also looking into including more advanced cameras and other types of sensors including explosives detectors (MEMS and SAW based) as well as RF detectors."
I'm pretty sure that in situations where they just want to blow it up (few, if they value the buildings at all) they can just chuck a long-fused grenade in the room and head for the hills. But, in modern explosives, it doesn't take much to bring down a city block, so presumably they don't just want to set it off and gamble that the bomb-maker doesn't know a detonator from a doorknob.
---
she won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
A control and telemetry RF link is unlikely to cause an accidental detonation if the power is kept reasonably low.
What I would like would be a disposable RC car and hand grenade that could be driven next to the device and detonated, to either disrupt the device or detonate it in place.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Correct me, but as fas as I'm concerned the
American military is the treat.
You're killing peoples life and destroying
a foreign country for reasons that are totally
bogus. Lets say, neo-con spin.
The Iraqis have the right to defend themselves.
You're an occupying army in an illegal war.
Seing as most IED designs rely on readily available and somewhat volatile substances, surely it would be cheaper and quicker to retire to a safe distance and pummel the IED with a rifle?
I'd expect the energy of a rifle-round hitting a volatile IED would be sufficient to trigger it, if not, tracer could be tried for flame ignition.
Of course, line-of-sight wouldn't always be available and that is where you could use one of these radio control cars for sympathetic detonation.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
A number of the posters here have referred to the long design, test and deployment cycle in the military, and in very many cases, their comments are accurate. But, there is a history of wartime hacks thought up by soldiers or people who knew soldiers. A good example from the WWI was the trench periscope. During WWII, Sgt. Curtis Culin welded pieces of steel cannibalized from German beach defenses to make the "Rhino", a tank capable of cutting through the high bushy walls that lined the roads in Normandy. Today, US Reservists and National Guardsmen are figuring out ways of mounting steel plates as armor on their HUMMVs. That soldiers and marines are coming up with field expedient devices external to the Department of Defense R&D system is nothing new. Some of the hacks get incorporated into actual milspec equipment; some doesn't. The DoD has whole organizations dedicated to cataloging and studying these things as "lessons-learned". It will be interesting to see if this idea gets picked up and widely applied in Iraq.
Bureaucracy loves company.
Amen. A good mate of mine in the Royal Engineers was (and is) a bomb disposal expert and spent many years in Angola getting rid of nasties like this and he mentioned that radio control was a no-no. His method was as low tech as possible: stick it all in a big hole and use a remote electrical detonator. No radio interference and if there's a shielding problem at the moment of detonation, then it really doesn't matter since you're blowing up the stuff anyway.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Hm, you have a point. Maybe they're using the older Remote Control styled cars with a really loooooong cable from the control to the robot?
Would be interesting to make it two that could couple together, one carrying the expensive instrumentation that could then drive away before the other half tries anything that might blow it up...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.