It was Christmas in July as the Logan City Police Department received a tactile police robot on Friday.
The robot looked like a replica of a black tank. It was about a half a foot tall with tracks for wheels, a rotating camera and an antenna. It was controlled by a handheld remote resembling a Game Boy console. Members of the SWAT team played with the robot as if it was their recently opened toy on Christmas morning.
“It actually has been kind of fun to watch these guys around the office,” said Gary Jensen, chief of the Logan City Police Department. “They’re driving it around and it has this track device on it. On top it has a camera device that we’re able to pan, tilt, zoom. It does have night vision capability. It is a neat piece of equipment.”
But the robot is much more than a toy. It’s like having another person on the task police force, except for the robot is dispensable, Jensen said.
The robot is versatile enough to be shared between different departments during hostile environments and tactile operations.
"We can listen, we can speak through the robot and it can go wherever we want to send it upstairs, over obstacles,” Jensen said. “It represents to us safety in those tenuous situations where we can send the robot as an indispensable item or sending an officer into harm’s way.”
The funding for the robot was provided in-part by a grant through Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation, an non-profit organization.
“I don’t anticipate we’ll use this a whole lot, but when you need it, you need it,” he said.