In a anxious, military wall situation earlier this month on Cape Cod, a robot canine took bullets, and police claim the droid’s deployment helped stop injuries to people officers.
In a statement, Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said,” The incident provided a striking instance of the benefits of smart programs capable of opening windows and ascending steps in military missions involving trained suspects.”
” In addition to providing critically important room clearance and situational awareness capabilities, the insertion of ( the robot ) into the suspect residence prevented the need, at that stage of response, from inserting human operators, and may have prevented a police officer from being involved in an exchange of gunfire”, Procopio continued.
In a wall condition where the person of interest was armed with a shotgun, police in Barnstable on March 6 released a machine made and produced by Boston Dynamics into a Francis Circle house.
According to Massachusetts State Police, the Spot system was released in the cellar where it cleared a wardrobe before being surprised by the man with the weapon who came out of a bedroom, which was so called by its manufacturer because of its mechanical dog-like appearance and four-legged design.
The guy pushed Roscoe over before ascending the stairs. Roscoe was able to remotely control the machine, best it, and then following the goal up the stairs.
” When the suspect realized, with evident surprise, that Roscoe was behind him on the staircase, he again knocked the machine over and then raised his rifle in Roscoe’s way”, the MSP wrote in a statement. ” The machine suddenly lost connections”.
Eventually, it would be discovered that Roscoe had taken three shots to disable him.
The guy then turned his attention to the two PacBot 510 computers that the officers had also unveiled in the home. The robots produced by Virginia- based Teledyne FLIR LLC is a plastic- tracked robot with a key arm that the company describes as specializing in “bomb disposal, surveillance and reconnaissance” as well as detecting chemical, biological, imaging, and atomic threats and handling toxic materials.
According to the MSP, police were able to release tear gas into the home because the man was distracted by those two robots. The man would soon surrender.
Trooper John Ragosa, the MSP bomb squadman who controlled Roscoe, took him to Boston Dynamics to have the damage assessed. The company, the MSP says, has expressed interest in keeping the shot- up unit for study. The MSP will be replacing their Spot unit, according to Coppicio.
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