iRobot

The U.S. Army plans to spend up to $200 million on iRobot products over the next five years, iRobot announced Tuesday.

The contract iRobot previously had with the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation expired in May 2008 and was limited to the purchase of PackBots.

The new contract gives the U.S. Army the freedom to purchase parts, training, and maintenance services from iRobot, as well as any robots from the company's industrial or consumer lines over the next five years, according to iRobot.

However, the $200 million five-year contract that was … Read more

iRobot announced a new addition to its lineup of industrial robots Wednesday.

The Negotiator, another tactical mobile robot that can climb stairs, seems to be a pared down, civilian version of the PackBot.

Like the PackBot, the Negotiator can climb stairs, work by remote control, and be outfitted with tools for reconnaissance and chemical detection.

iRobot already offers a version of the PackBot 510 with a kit for first responders. While some municipalities have adopted it, the PackBot hasn't exactly become a common sight at your local police station.

It seems that iRobot has finally realized that the PackBot, … Read more

A robotics company founded by a father who lost his son to the Iraq war has garnered an $800,000 contract with the U.S. military.

Black-I Robotics makes an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) called the LandShark that can be used as a platform to disable bombs, provide reconnaissance, and carry wounded soldiers from the battlefield. The LandShark robot can also be used at home in the U.S. as an aid to first responders for search-and-rescue, firefighting, Hazmat, and SWAT efforts, and even in agriculture, according to a company statement.

"We believe UGV chassis should be thought of … Read more

In addition to an expected increase in sales to the U.S. military, iRobot says it will see growth in its unmanned robot platforms from foreign buyers.

The "Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032," a report put out by the Department of Defense last year, outlined a strategy to increase spending in unmanned technology for the air, sea, and ground.

iRobot, which has already been supplying the U.S. military with unmanned robots for use in ground reconnaissance and combat, has repeatedly said it will benefit from the military's increased need.

But the company now says that as its … Read more

On launch day, the Get Firefox site experienced an outage for at least an hour--just before Mozilla was expected to make the new version of its Web browser available for download. Reporter Stephen Shankland joined me in the podcast studio today to talk about what happened, and whether it'll affect Mozilla's goal to set a new software record.

About a dozen DNA companies have been issued cease-and-desist letters to stop selling their consumer genetic test kits. NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander finds a mysterious white substance in the Martian soil (Is anybody else channeling Jack Skellington after … Read more

iRobot has secured a multimillion-dollar R&D contract for a new type of soft, flexible robot for the military, the company announced Tuesday.

The "ChemBot" project was awarded to iRobot from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office.

iRobot did not release any preliminary diagrams or details on what the ChemBot might look like. But some ideas on what a ChemBot might be like can be gleaned from a request for proposals DARPA put out in March 2007. The robot DARPA wants to see must be a soft, flexible, mobile … Read more

iRobot has secured exclusive commercial rights to develop an unmanned sea-faring robot from a group at the University of Washington.

The Bedford, Mass.-based company made the announcement Tuesday at the annual symposium for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

Specifically, the agreement is to commercialize an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) called the Seaglider.

The Seaglider was developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory and the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in conjunction with the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, which funded the initial project.

iRobot believes the Seaglider has military application … Read more

The military sees a need for a flying robot that can swoop into an enemy position, transition to wheel or track mode, and then get busy icing bad guys--something along the lines of the Griffon UGV/UAV Air Mobility System.

While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can wing in quickly to reconnoiter or attack enemy positions, they can't follow a target into a cave or a building. Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), on the other hand, can enter structures, search for targets, and examine them at close range, but they're slower than UAVs, have less range, and are limited by … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Back in the '90s, iRobot worked on a robot that could help drill for oil.

Then oil dropped from $30 to $20 a barrel, and interest among potential customers dropped too, said iRobot CEO Colin Angle during a meeting at this week's Consumer Electronics Show here. With oil bouncing around $100 a barrel now, that chucked idea may make a comeback, he said.

Drilling for oil is sort of misnomer, Angle noted. The ground doesn't consist of hidden lakes of liquid petrochemicals. Instead, oil is encased in porous rock, Angle said. To get at it, oil drillers … Read more