Milwaukee Police Department Buying New Bomb Robot

MK3 CALIBER® medium-sized robot. Image from ICOR Technology website.

The Milwaukee Police Department will soon have a new assistant to help it defuse explosive situations.

A new bomb robot will replace a predecessor that will limp into retirement, or the recycling, after serving for 22 years.

“At this time it’s not functioning,” said Sergeant Adam Isleb to the Public Safety & Health Committee Thursday. “We’ve tried a couple times to repair it, but it is not functioning at this time.”

A $254,000 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs Wisconsin Emergency Management division will cover the cost of the new robot. “It is a much more robust model,” said Isleb.

The remote-controlled devices can be used to inspect and defuse suspicious objects.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office is one of six agencies in Wisconsin that maintains a robot. However, it has a similar issue to MPD’s robot.

“There’s, to my understanding, is at the same life expectancy as the one we have right now,” said Isleb.

All six bomb squads in Wisconsin are expected to use the same model eventually, said Isleb, allowing bomb squad members could work interoperably in crisis situations.

The reliability of the current MPD robot has been an issue for some time now.

“It was down for approximately six months to a year, we got it back functioning. But because of its age and everything, it’s been down for about six months,” said Isleb.

MPD also maintains a secondary robot, said the sergeant.

The full Common Council must still formally endorse the grant acceptance.

The Milwaukee Police Department Historical Society website retains a history of the city’s bomb squad.

Modern bomb robots provide real-time video, allow operators to communicate with those near the robot, can climb stairs and offer several appendages to interact with nearby objects. Isleb indicated the desired model has already been selected, but did not identify it.

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