EOD Lasercomm Subcompact Interrogator

Lasercomm Link for Explosive Ordinance Disposal Robots

NovaSol’s EOD Lasercomm Interrogator is designed to control Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) robots. It sends out command signals and receives video streams back from several cameras mounted on the robot. It works in conjunction with a small modulating retroreflector attached to the robot. 

EOD robots are frequently called upon to operate in conditions where radio (RF) communications are challenged. This is the case especially when jammers are deployed, both by friendly forces to enhance security and by the foe to interdict operations. Even when jamming is not present, RF can be compromised. Tethering the robot with a fiber optic cable can provide an alternate means of communication, but tethers tangle and break and impose operational restrictions that limit their usefulness. Lasercomm offers a better means of high-bandwidth, lowlatency, jam-proof wireless communications.

   
In addition to its immunity to radio’s limitations, NovaSol’s Lasercomm interrogator emits no RF radiation and is entirely EMCON-safe so that it can be used in the presence of explosives without itself posing a detonation risk. We also offer increased communications range to allow greater standoff distances between the robot and its human operators. 

All of these advantages combine to make NOVASOL’S EOD Lasercomm solution a distinct safety multiplier.

NovaSol’s Compact Interrogator (CI) is the world’s only commercially-available interrogator that works with retroreflecting Lasercomm. It has been tested with the current generation of EOD robots in a series of
successful tests and demonstrations and proved conclusively that
lasercomm can live up to its promise in this application. 

The EOD version of the CI offers this functionality at a fraction of the cost of the full CI, and with a substantially smaller power requirement. This is achieved by customizing the hardware to the specific EOD application. Expensive beam-steering subsystems have been simplified and the optics streamlined to save weight and expense. The result is an optical link priced competitively with the radio link used in currently deployed
systems.