The iRobot Packbot is a military robot from the makers of the robot vacuum Roomba. It’s currently deployed in Afghanistan doing dirty and dangerous jobs that would previously needed human beings to put themselves in harm’s way. Electricpig got up close and personal with a Packbot at the iRobot Engineering Awesome event in New York and found out how and off-the-shelf Xbox 360 controller is part of a modern soldier’s tool kit…
Rob Smith, a marketing director in iRobot’s military robots division, gave us a look at the iRobot Packbot and explained that the original controller, designed for the MOD was a vast metal beast which took many hours to master. In short, it was a nightmare to use. The solution? Replace it with an Xbox controller (and in some cases a PS3 controller).
Smith explains: “Soldier have grown up playing Xbox 360 so its much more intuitive for them to use an Xbox controller when operating with Packbot. The Xbox controller is also cheap and really easy to swap out.” However, iRobot also offers Milspec controllers for Packbot which feature a design clearly inspired by a PS3 Dualshock controller but packed into a casing that can take serious amounts of heat, dust and knocks.
You can see the standard Xbox controller hooked up to a full iRobot Packbot control rig in the gallery above. Along with the controller, soldiers carry a BB2590 standard US Army Battery (another also powers the robot itself), a radio to communicate with the robot, a thermite computer and a pair of glasses which have heads-up-display projected on them showing what the Packrobot’s camera is seeing.
The most arresting sight at the Packrobot display was the remains of Packrobot 129, killed in action during operations in Iraq. You can see it in the gallery above along with a close up of one of the parts that shows how the squad using the Packrobot came to see it as a cross between a pet and a comrade. There’s a tally of operations it was involved in and a name “Scooby Doo”.
We’ll have more stories from the iRobot event on Monday including news on the future of Roomba and more mind-blowing future tech. Let us know what you’d like to know about the robots.
Out now | Around $31,000 | iRobot
