RUM - a Digging Robot to Bust Bunkers


INDUSTRY SEARCH:				WORLD AEROSPACE DATABASE:		Search Sponsored by:

Unmanned Horizons: News, Videos, Ask The Experts, Photos And More

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

RUM - a Digging Robot to Bust Bunkers

Posted by Graham Warwick at 3/15/2010 8:29 AM CDT

Those of us brought up on the Thunderbirds - Gerry Anderson's television series, not the USAF display team - will smile at a new request for information from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency for a Robotic Underground Munition (RUM).

The RFI is seeking ideas for a "one-time use, air-delivered, highly mobile vehicle having certain characteristics similar to an unmanned ground vehicle". Maybe it's just me, but I immediately thought of the Mole, the burrowing vehicle ferried to the site of a nail-biting underground rescue in the cargo pod of Thunderbird 2.

The Mole (courtesy Keith McNeill, website here)

DTRA's RUM program aims to demonstrate a prototype robotic munition that would make a soft landing from an aircraft and autonomously navigate underground, with passive and active defenses. Needed technologies include robotic sensors and perception, survivable underground communications, and capabilities to traverse or defeat natural and man-made obstacles,

The RFI does not identify what a robotic underground muntion would do, but it doesn't take much imagination to see a Mole-like vehicle digging its way to a deeply buried command bunker or weapons site - as an alternative to the air-delivered, brute-force, rock-and-concrete pulverizing Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).

MOP drop test (credit: DTRA)

Comments (5) | Permanent Link

Tags: ar99, UGV, DTRA, WMD

Email this post	Recommend
	Report Abuse

Bobbymike wrote:

Graham, I preferred "Captain Scarlett"

3/15/2010 5:25 PM CDT

Report Abuse

Permalink

sferrin wrote:

1. Is there a higher resolution version of that MOP test? 2. Whatever happened to the digger bomb concept?

3/15/2010 8:48 PM CDT

Report Abuse

Permalink

Graham Warwick wrote:

Bobbymike - I'm looking for an opportunity to reference Captian Scarlet: Cloudbase, Angel Interceptors, Meloday and Harmony...

3/16/2010 6:58 AM CDT

Report Abuse

Permalink

Graham Warwick wrote:

sferrin - I finally found a higher-res MOP drop pic on DTRA's Flikr site (social media meets WMDs!). As for the Deep Digger bomb, I don't know. The last reference I can find is in 2008.

3/16/2010 7:10 AM CDT

Report Abuse

Permalink

Bill Sweetman wrote:

FAB

3/16/2010 11:25 AM CDT

Report Abuse

Permalink

Archives

Older
October 2009 (160)
November 2009 (141)
December 2009 (119)
January (128)
February (128)
March (144)
April (116)
May (99)
June (123)
July (105)
August (136)
September (26)

Most Recent Tags