Servo - July 2009

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LAW ENFORCEMENT ROBOTS

by Tom Carroll

Robots used by different law enforcement agencies always seem to make the news. They are a highlight of police television shows and they are great action displays for agencies to take to schools, community meetings, and other public gatherings to solicit community support.

Detectives Scott Wayne and Larry Meyer of the Seattle Police Bomb/Arson Squad demonstrated their robot at the Seattle Robotics Society’s Robothon (SRS) a few years ago. A bomb scare back in July of ’96 was enough to convince the Seattle City Council to approve the purchase of the $120,000 robot that they had just turned down the day before. Recently, the Port of Seattle Police

took one of their Remotec Andros robots to a meeting of the SRS for a demonstration. Figure 1 shows a view of this sophisticated robot. Needless to say, the members ‘crawled’ all over the robot to see the different components and learn how they worked together to make this robot one of the most popular used in law enforcement. More on this robot later.

Comparing Military Robots With Civilian Robots

There are more differences between law enforcement and military robots than there are similarities.

Military robots are in use for far longer periods of time than law enforcement robots. Operation of the military robot may be by a 19 year old soldier whereas the robots used by police agencies may be operated by a senior officer with 10 or more years on the force.

High reliability is of great importance for both robots as life or death situations are the norm. A robot used by the police or bomb squad to examine or remove a hazardous item or to see or communicate with a suspect are less frequent events, though potentially as deadly as a military operation.