Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Gov’t deal validates Black-I Robotics strategy

By Brendan Lynch

The recent deal Black-I Robotics landed from a U.S. government agency offered a big boost to its LandShark robot business plan.

Black-I won the contract, worth nearly $800,000, from the Technical Support Working Group, an anti-terror agency under the U.S. Department of State. Under the deal, the Tyngsboro company will provide three of its LandShark bomb-disposal robots: one each to Logan International Airport, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marines. The robots will be tested in the field at Logan and in Iraq, and are expected to be shipped in the fall.

Hughes said the deal was a validation of Black-I’s strategy. “It gets us into a playing field where we need to be,” he said.

Black-I was founded in 2005, after CEO John Hart’s 20-year old son, Private First Class John Hart was killed in action in Iraq in 2003.

Black-I is working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, using its software, to get the robots to market quicker, according to Robert Hughes, the company’s vice president. One of the goals of the contract is to develop autonomous functionality for the LandShark, Hughes said.

“It’s a huge step from tele-operated to autonomous,” he said.

Black-I’s six-wheeled, electric-powered LandShark robot, which he called a “mini-Humvee,” is larger and heavier than robots with similar functions made by competitors iRobot Corp. and Foster-Miller Inc. IRobot’s PackBot and Foster-Miller’s Talon are both small enough to be carried by soldiers, but are more expensive than the Black-I robot, which can also carry a larger payload. Black-I doesn’t think of itself as competing with those companies.

“We come at this from a little different direction from our peers,” he said.