Mobile robot for bomb removal

Systems Engineering students developed a mobile bomb-removal robot for aeroplanes.

Stefan Umbricht presents his bomb-removal robot (photo: LP Aargauer Zeitung [newspaper for the Swiss canton of Aargau])

In the event of a bomb threat on an aeroplane, passengers must first be evacuated and a removal robot must then transport the luggage from the aeroplane. Current bomb-removal robots are too cumbersome in most cases and therefore  impractical for use on aeroplanes. It is for this reason that the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland is developing a mobile robot for removing luggage from aeroplane cabins on behalf of RUAG Schweiz AG.

Several Systems Engineering students have developed the kinematics, the control system and an Android application. The robot consists of a tracked vehicle and gripper arm with four cameras. The components can be controlled by means of a tablet computer and gamepad via a Wi-Fi network.

Project information

• Client: RUAG Schweiz AG
• Project team: Florian Eggenberger and Stefan Umbricht
• Supervision: Professor Dr. Roland Anderegg