Robot Manufacturers

FIRST Career
1

Does anyone have any contacts for companies that make robots for the military, swat and other special cases? My ideal career would to be in that field. I am looking for any contact information to get my foot in the door and get a possible internship and even better possibility of a career out of it.

thanks for any help,

Alex C

2

Hey!

My company, Bluefin Robotics, designs and manufactures AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) for the navy. There’s also iRobot, which makes the PackBot, and Vecna, which makes a robot that can carry people off the battlefield if they’re injured. All three of these are in Boston, though. Feel free to PM me if you want any more info on them :slight_smile:

~Mikell

3

There’s also Foster-Miller, who build robots for the military and police forces. Their Talon robot is pretty sweet.

Also in the area is Boston Dynamics. If you want to see something cool, check out the Big Dog robot. http://youtube.com/watch?v=YUoW43Xq7ts

-Steve

4

You can check out US Army TACOM. They do a ton of research and development on mobile robotics including autonomous vehicles. The main site for this is in Warren, MI. You can read more here:

http://www.tacom.army.mil/main/index.html

5

Alex,

With FCS (Future Combat Systems) in full swing, most of the major players in the defense industry are currently involved in some type of autonomous project. One of these is BAE Systems who also happens to be a major sponsor of FIRST. If you can make your way to the Granite State Regional there should be plenty of people you can talk to since the entire regional is manned by BAE employees.

6

Actually, it’s TARDEC (Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center) that does all the RD&E. We’re part of RDECOM, located at the same installation as TACOM. TACOM is one of our customers.

Here’s tech. specific info:
http://tardec.army.mil/armytechobj.html

Our intern program is available Juniors and above.

A good place look for info on a career here is:
http://acpol.army.mil/employment/

If you are into RD&E part as much or more than the M part, then this is the place to be. We do some manufacturing alright, but not on a mass production basis, mostly one-of or a battalion-of special packages.

7

thanks everyone for the information. i will take it all into consideration.

8

You could also consider most of the private defense companies to have some sort of “robotics” division. Though, they would probably cringe at the term “robots” for their fully autonomous vehicles.

  • High Altitude Airships (HAA’s)
  • Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV’s)
  • Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAV’s)

Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, etc… are the key contractors for this type of work.

BEN

9

to
Mikell Taylor

:confused: Can you please let me know if there is any internship available this summer,
so I can have a look on it in case if I won’t get selected in others.