June 28, 2007 Northrop Grumman demonstrated its CUTLASS unmanned explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) vehicle to the U.K. Under-Secretary of State for Defence last week. The CUTLASS system offers the latest technology in a modular design, enabling the user to deal with the full range of both military and improvised explosive devices. Its highly versatile design means that it is capable of accommodating a wide range of payloads, sensors and tools. The manipulator arm is equipped with a state-of-the-art gripper and has nine degrees of freedom for greater movement and agility inside limited spaces, such as the interior of a car. The robot is able to creep along at deliberately slow speeds for delicate operations and may accelerate to high speeds to enable rapid travel. The six-wheeled design offers mobility on all types of hard and soft terrain and in all weather conditions.
The impressively large and robust-looking prototype robot will soon replace the Wheelbarrow as the next generation bomb disposal vehicle for the U.K. military.
Northrop Grumman is providing 80 CUTLASS vehicles to the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MoD) under a contract awarded to its Remotec subsidiary in December 2006. The CUTLASS unmanned bomb disposal vehicle will be used by the MoD for anti-terrorism operations worldwide.
