“It has successfully passed a series of field tests at an ordnance range in southern Russia, and is already being used there in life-threatening situations,” a Defense Ministry representative told the newspaper.
The robot’s manipulators replicate human palms and even fingers with phalanges which are still inferior to human motor skills.
The “head” consists of two cameras through which the operator can see the battlefield 1,000 meters ahead. It can also rotate 360 degrees in both horizontal and vertical planes.
The "Specialist"'s platform also serves as the basis for a unique robot designed to find and move the wounded from the battlefield. It can also measure a soldier’s temperature, pulse and blood pressure and send the data to the operator who decides whether the trooper is fit to fight on or needs to be evacuated.
“Demining robots have been used by foreign armies for quite some time now, suffice it to mention the British Dragon Runner of the American PackBot, but none of them deserves to called a sapper,” independent military expert Oleg Zheltonozhko told Izvestia.
He added that these are pretty small units that close in on a mine or other explosive device to assess the danger with the help of an onboard camera.
“Because the manipulators to be found on most of the existing demining robots are fairly primitive, all they can do is get hold of the bomb and move it as far away from people as possible,” Zheltonozhko said.
