Law enforcement robut technology assessment

摘要

Battellel was tasked by the National Institute of Justice to both assess the state-of-the-art in bomb disposal robot technologies and to identify research and development needs. A well-documented market-driven approach was taken to define the bomb dispoal technician needs along with the shortcomings of existing systems. This paper will summarize the findings of that report. One-on-one interviews, focus group discussions, and written questionnaires were used to fully assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing robot vehicles and subsystems as they relate to the tasks performed during normal bomb disposal operations. Best commercial practices were used to perform the robot technology market assessment. A summary of the market assessment methods and references to their sources will be presented. It was found, as a result of this study, that no bomb disposal robot manufacturers had performed a market assessment to the level of detail performed during this effort. Nine key performance and cost attributes were identified as a result of this study. The relative importance of the various attributes will be presented along with the user's sensitivity to variance in these attributes. The findings serve as the basis on which engineering and design trade-offs can be made during a robot development effort. An extensive evaluation of existing robotic platform performance shortfalls was conducted and will be presented. The shortfalls have been analyzed with respect to the mission performed today and also looking to the future threat environment (5-10 years). The summary of findings from this report should be of interest to people pursuing the development of new technologies for law enforcement robot applications.