TALON (TALON V / 5 DOF)

In service since Bosnia in 2000 and credited by Wikipedia with roughly 20,000 EOD missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the TALON is the longest-serving military bomb-disposal robot and the first robot used in combat.

QinetiQ North America, successor to Foster-Miller, builds the current TALON V (5 DOF): 76.2 kg with batteries (2020 datasheet: 158 lb without, 168 lb with), 91 by 57 by 53 cm, 8.2 km/h, 4 to 6 h of endurance and stair-climbing up to 43 degrees.

The five-axis manipulator reaches 195 cm vertically, lifts 68 kg, drags 100 kg and rotates its gripper through 360 degrees; a 1080p PTZ camera with 30x optical zoom plus gripper and rear cameras feed the operator, and CBRN sensors are optional. Control runs from a laptop unit over a Persistent Systems MPU5 IP mesh radio with more than 800 m line-of-sight range.

The US Army refurbished 353 TALON IVs in 2014; the US Navy EOD, US Marines, Israel and Lebanon (training) also use the robot, and total production is unpublished. The armed SWORDS variant with M249/M240 machine guns, M16, Barrett M82 or 40 mm grenade launcher deployed to Iraq in 2007 with three units but never fired in combat; Wikipedia quotes USD 230,000 each with a projected USD 150,000 to 180,000 in series – the base TALON is priced on request.

Its US Army successor is the lighter Centaur, and the man-portable alternative the PackBot 525.