The Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Division of the National Guard Bureau‘s Operations Directorate teamed up with other Defense Department agencies to develop a robotic chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incident response capacity within the DoD.Malcolm Reese, joint program director of the Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Division, led an effort to integrate chemical, biological, radiological and toxic industrial material sensors on re-purposed Talon IV unmanned robots, the U.S. Army said Friday.
Reese’s team also added an upgraded communication system, infrared day/night cameras and an autonomous mapping system for the CBRN robots.
Tech. Sgt. Brett Whitfill, survey team chief from the 73rd civil support team within the Kansas National Guard, said that the robots help mitigate the need for personnel to suit up for data gathering missions.
“With this [equipment] we could pull it out of our truck or trailer, set it up and send it downrange to investigate …Â We [can] get real-time data and real-time feedback,” added Whitfill.
