Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Army to pay iRobot up to $200M for military bots

By Mass High Tech Staff

IRobot Corp. has landed a contract worth up to $200 million to supply the U.S. Army’s Robotic Systems Joint Project Office with military robots, such as its PackBot, spare parts, training and repair services over the next five years.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract replaces a previous deal that expired in May, according to the publicly traded iRobot (Nasdaq: IRBT).

The deal caps a busy summer for the consumer and military robot maker. Last month, iRobot released the Negotiator, a robot for use by police officers and other public safety officials. The robot, a smaller, lower-cost version of the PackBot, is intended for reconnaissance use by police, fire and homeland security personnel and is able to climb stairs.

In July, iRobot received a $17.5 million order from the U.S. Army to deliver 220 PackBots by the end of the year.

Also in July, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick presented the company with a $240,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Workforce Development. The workforce training grant will be used to train 130 iRobot employees in Lean management practices.

In June, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Army Research Office gave iRobot a $3.3 million, multiyear contract to create Chemical Robots (ChemBots) for use in unmanned urban search and rescue and reconnaissance work. Earlier in June, iRobot struck a licensing agreement with the University of Washington to commercialize underwater vehicle technology — a robot called the Seaglider —  developed at the university.

Bedford-based iRobot reported a 2007 net income of $9.1 million on revenue of $249.1 million.