i3 Robots to Provide Safe Removal of UXO
HUNTSVILLE, AL, July 10, 2012, by Ken Lien and Dr. Josette Kool – i3 announced today
that its first robotic range clearance machine was recently unveiled at a ceremony in
Huntsville. Named “SAMSON” after the strongest man in Biblical history, i3’s FECON Forestry
Mulcher was remoted for robotic field operations for vegetation removal on contaminated
artillery or bombing ranges.
SAMSON’s first tour of duty will be at Fort Polk, Louisiana late this summer. The objective will
be to improve visual observation of range targets by providing range maintenance support in the
form of tree and vegetation removal in designated Munitions and Explosives of Concern (MEC)
contaminated areas in the Redleg Impact Area.
The dangers of unexploded ordnance (UXO) aren’t just in the faraway lands of Afghanistan,
Syria, or Turkey. Right here in the USA there are hundreds of military ranges with unspent
munitions lying within the vegetation, and on, or beneath the surface of the earth. Today,
the Department of Defense has the challenge of cleaning up these ranges for a variety of
reasons: Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), new range construction on old
ranges, and clearing so soldiers can identify their targets in heavily vegetated areas.
The manually performed UXO range clearance methods historically used are costly, time
consuming, and dangerous, but i3 is overcoming this challenge head-on with remote-controlled,
robotic range clearance machinery. Robotic range clearance has several advantages over
manual methods:
• It removes the soldier or technician out of harm’s way,
• In many cases, is cheaper and faster than manual methods. Robotics can reduce
the cost of vegetation removal, utility trenching, rough grading, geophysical mapping,
surface clearance, shallow subsurface clearance, and possibly deep subsurface
clearance.
• Adjacent ranges can continue operation.
By using a robotic forestry mulcher, i3 can safely and effectively remove vegetation from
the ranges to allow proper targeting by the soldiers during training. With manual methods,
many times adjacent ranges must be closed due to the impact hazards faced by the UXO
technicians being present on the range. But robotic methods allow continued use of
adjacent ranges even though they may present a hazard to the range being cleared. This
has an obvious impact on our force training and readiness.
Neya Systems worked with i3 to develop the retrofit kit for the FECON FTX-148. Neya
developed the software for the operator control unit and the vehicle control software, and was
responsible for the overall systems integration. Neya worked with Beaver, PA subcontractor,
RoPro Design, to develop the hardware interfaces and eletromechanical retrofit.
i3 has been conducting Range Clearance operations since 2008 and has cleaned many ranges
including Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, Massachusetts Military Reservation and Eglin AFB, FL just to
name a few.
