Bomb defusing robot to be mass-produced

Manila: A 34-year-old former mechanical engineering professor is leading a team of experts that has set out to mass-produce a robot that can deftly defuse explosive devices at a fraction of the cost of similar devices in use in other parts of the world.

Roel John Judilla, a navy reserve officer and former dean of the Mapua Institute of Technology in the Philippines, said his team would be able to offer a device that would be extremely competitive on the price front, unlike similar projects implemented in other countries, because most of the technology and systems it envisaged were commercially available "off the shelf".

Moved to action

Judilla was quoted by the Manila Times as saying that news footage of policemen directly handling explosives led him to think of developing a robot that would help keep them out of harm's way while engaged in such dangerous missions.

There have been incidents when police officers have been killed while trying to render bombs planted by terrorists ineffective. One such incident played out on December 30, 2000, when two members of Makati City's bomb disposal unit were killed trying to defuse a bomb planted at a gasoline station.

Judilla said the one-metre-high tracked robot he had developed along with his students was capable of handling bombs as heavy as five kilogrammes. Its in-built camera helped the operator defuse explosives from a safe distance, he said.

Initial cost estimates for the tank-like robot are pegged at around 200,000 Philippine pesos (Dh16,651) compared to similar systems in use in the United States and Israel that run into millions of dollars.

Only the Makati Police have so far placed orders for the device but orders are expected to come in, especially from law enforcement agencies in insurgency-wracked Mindanao.