A U.S. Army's soldier walks past a de-mining robot
A U.S. Army's soldier walks past a de-mining robot named after the computer animated character "Wall-E" at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, March 10, 2010. Reuters//Shamil Zhumatov

The iRobot company supply surveillance and first response machines to defence authorities. iRobot has developed a uPoint Multi-Robot Control system to make it easy to control maneuver and operate these robots in an environment that is highly stressed. This system allows operators to steer these machines using an Android Tablet. This system is also compatible with any of the Android tablets available in the market.

According to the Senior Vice President and General Manager of iRobot's Defence and Security business unit, Frank Wilson, the success of the operator handling the robot during high stress and critical operation depends on the accuracy and reliable control, so the interface needs to be intuitive. iRobot has been through decades of experience in working with robot operators and user focus groups has developed the uPoint MRC system that makes the mission effective and successful.

The defence department mainly relies on joysticks and a monitor that has a Linux OS to steer Robots. This is a tedious and painstaking effort that takes a longer time to train the operator that is working with these devices. At present, there are 6,000 robots that are deployed worldwide. The new system developed by iRobot will be a boon to the department. When the uPoint Multi-Robot Control system is launched, soldiers and cops handling these Robots need to start the app and steer the Robots by tapping on the tablet screen. This will greatly reduce the time taken to train the operators to handle the robots.

This system is also effective and efficient in terms of the work that it can do. Operators can switch between robots by switching the tablets and share data instantly among the team members as well as capture videos and photos and immediately upload them to the cloud. The app communicates with the robots or the machines with the uPoint Robot Radio network and not Bluetooth, as it is not secure in sensitive scenarios.

According to iRobot, the system will be launched in the second quarter of 2015.