What DARPA was interested in, and one of the things that got military funding, was the PackBot, which is made by iRobot, the same people who make Roomba, which was used for bomb disposal.
One of the first was the PackBot, from US-based iRobot, with many more following for a variety of tasks, from inspection to debris clearing and even dry ice-based decontamination.
The design was inspired by the iRobot Packbot which has a set of treaded appendages sticking off the front end. These ensure that the vertical face of an obstacle, such as the beginnings of a ...
iRobot also became a big player in this field. Their bomb disposal robot, PackBot, marries user control with intelligent capabilities such as explosives sniffing. Over 2000 PackBots have been ...
That tech has a fascinating history. Colin and his team designed the Sojourner rover that explored the surface of Mars in 1997 and the bomb-defusing Packbot that saved lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.