The RobonostiXTM team has recently received a working military robot acquired through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific (SSC Pacific). The robot is an iRobot Packbot Explorer that the team has nicknamed Dora. This robot is similar to the Man Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) robots that are fielded with US forces in Iraq/Afghanistan and used extensively in the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) mission against Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).

The robotics lab is working on integrating RobonostiXTM onto Dora as part of a proof-of-concept demonstration of fault detection, diagnosis and reporting to the robot operator. The Lab team is also integrating into the SSC Pacific Multi-Robot Operator Control Unit (MOCU) software as part of this demonstration. This effort is being funded via the DoD Mentor Protégé program. Sullivan’s robotics team has made substantial progress in their development efforts on RobonostiXTM and is also preparing to support a high profile robotics demonstration of this software application later this year in Hawaii.