New Navy IED robot contracts coming

Defense News reports that the Navy plans to increase purchases of bomb-defusing robots including the iRobot PackBot and Foster-Miller's Talon. According to Defense News, 55 percent will be Talons and 45 percent PackBots. (They had previously been roughly 50-50, but we've noticed that Foster-Miller has been getting the bulk of the orders this year.) The Navy also plans to have an RFP on the street for the 25-pound robot class currently dominated by cheap robots called BomBots. Depending on how the RFP is written, iRobot could conceivably bid. That's not likely if the Navy just wants thousands of ultra-cheap BomBots, but if they want highly capable SUGV-style robots with arms, iRobot is where it's at. The SUGV and the SUGV Early will be significantly more expensive than a BomBot, but much more capable.