iRobot contracted for DARPA LANdroids program

BURLINGTON, Mass., 4 March 2008.iRobot Corp. has received an award under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) LANdroids program.

Through this multiyear robotics research-and-development program, iRobot will develop a new portable communications relay robot that is small, inexpensive, intelligent, and robust. The new effort takes advantage of the company's extensive experience in mobile robot design and production.

The goal of the DARPA LANdroids program is to develop technologies to enable the warfighter operating in dense urban environments to deploy and maintain a vital communications infrastructure. This infrastructure is composed of a system of multiple LANdroids mobile communications relay robots that form a reconfigurable communications backbone in support of operations.

During this program, iRobot will design and develop the LANdroids robot. This robot will be small enough that a single dismounted warfighter can carry multiple robots, inexpensive to the point of being disposable, robust enough to allow the warfighter to drop and throw them into position, and smart enough to autonomously detect and avoid obstacles while navigating in the urban environment.