Council In the News Index

9/11 Sparks Defense Boom
Robots, X-ray machines, battlefield IT lead way
September 8, 2011

By Brendan Lynch

After the Sept. 11 attacks, prototypes for iRobot’s PackBot were pulled out of the company’s laboratories and rushed to New York to search for survivors in the damaged structures on the fringes of Ground Zero.

“At the time, we said, ‘We have a new tool, here’s what it can do,’” said Joseph Dyer, iRobot’s chief operating officer. “That differs markedly from 10 years later, when robots were the first tool on the ground in Fukushima (Japan). Things have changed dramatically.”

Since then, contracts from the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to Massachusetts companies have tripled to more than $15 billion, according to a report by the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

“In late 2002, when the U.S. moved into Afghanistan, and came to deal with IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and cave reconnaissance, those same robots were used,” Dyer said. “Today, we have some 4,000 robots deployed.”

Technologies like robotics, inspection, identification and battlefield IT attracted major investment over the past decade.

“In the last 10 years, from a spending standpoint, war-fighter requirements and homeland security requirements have become increasingly technology-oriented,” said Chris Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council. “During the past 10 years, the opportunity for innovative technology firms, of which we have the highest density in the United States, continued to increase.”

James Shields, CEO of tThe Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, estimated the nonprofit research lab has grown about 50 percent as a result of research projects started in response to the attacks. But more importantly, Draper has focused on solving different kinds of problems, he said, like improving the accuracy of supply airdrops using robotic controls and inertial guidance systems.

“Pre-9/11, most of the work was major force-on-force combat – guiding missiles to targets, finding and killing tanks,” he said. “The active combat phase of the current wars passed quickly, and the more extended period has been the stabilization phase, the nation-building phase. You’ve got squads of six to 10 people patrolling the streets, doing precision raids.”

Billerica’s American Science and Engineering saw a post-9/11 spike in demand for its X-ray inspection portals and mobile systems in vans, which can find bombs or other contraband in cars.

“The success story of AS&E over the last five to 10 years has been the adoption of X-ray inspection technology by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Josephine Millward, an analyst for the Benchmark Co.

Defense cuts loom, but Massachusetts’ defense technology industry may be insulated. Millward said AS&E’s outlook is uncertain, due to changes in U.S. military strategy, but long-term demand should remain strong. Dyer said iRobot is expanding into robots for infantry units and underwater robots.

Andre Mayer, senior vice president of research at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said Bay State companies should continue to grow, since they make force multipliers, which help fewer soldiers do more.

“We don’t build a lot of frames for aircraft,” Mayer said. “But if we’re talking about something densely packed with electronics, that’s something we do here.”