WILLISTON, Vt. (AP) - On a recent morning, two members of the Vermont State Police Bomb Squad stared intently at two screens inside their truck parked outside the Williston barracks, their hands pressing nobs and softly moving joysticks on the computer’s operation board.
The mission: retrieve a hat and gloves from a visiting photographer’s camera bag using two of the squad’s three robots.
It was gentle work, as the robots arms carefully hovered over the bag, grabbed its zippers and prodded the bag. Within 10 minutes, the robots had successfully handed the items to the photographer.
“Mission complete,” said Sgt. Bill Sweeney, a member of the squad. “That wasn’t even that hard.”
While this task was just to show what the robots can do, the nine-member Bomb Squad faces real situations where the machines are used, said Sgt. Paul Ravelin, another squad member. The robots were seen in action on Jan. 6 at the Federal Building on Elmwood Avenue in Burlington after a suspicious package was found at the post office.
“It was an unknown to us,” Ravelin said this week of the suspicious package. “We had information to believe that the package we were looking at had been moved by someone prior to us being there. Not knowing what it was we were approaching, we felt the best way to do it was to send a robot down and see what we would be dealing with.”
Each call for the Bomb Squad is different, and members typically initially assess whether the robots are needed.
“We can put a robot downrange, instead of having human beings exposed to an unknown threat,” Ravelin said. “We can do everything a human can do, but we can actually do it robotically.”
The squad uses three robots that are different sizes: a large robot that weighs about 500 pounds, a medium robot which weighs 125 pounds, and a small “point-man” robot weighs about 15 pounds and stands about one foot off the ground. Vermont State Police used funding from U.S. Homeland Security for the robots, Ravelin said.
The largest robot cost $140,000, the medium robot was about $150,000, and the smallest robot cost about $25,000. The middle robot is the newest, purchased about a year-and-a-half ago, Ravelin said.
The two larger robots have arms that can grab objects, and the smaller robot is used for reconnaissance. The largest robot, which is 14 years old and made of steel and aluminum, can also drag up objects up to 600 pounds.
“A bomb tech in a suit weighs up to 300 pounds on average, so if a bomb tech goes down, we can use the robot to go down and pull that tech into safety,” Ravelin said.
The largest robot also allows for two-way communication: members of the bomb squad speak from a walkie talkie inside the squad truck, and those in the field can speak back through a speaker on the bot. Ravelin said the two-way communication could come in handy during a hostage situation when other attempts by crisis negotiators to contact a subject are unsuccessful. The robots have yet to be used for that purpose, but Bomb Squad members have trained for that possibility, he said.
The Bomb Squad trains at least three times per year, sometimes alongside members of the Vermont Air National Guard, Ravelin said.
The nine-member Bomb Squad team responds to about 25 to 50 calls per year throughout the state, according to the Vermont State Police website.
“If we can minimize the amount of time that we’re actually standing over an IED, that’s better for us in the long run,” Ravelin said. “And if we’re utilizing the robot to do that, and that’s the better option, we’ll take that opportunity every time.”
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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
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