Decommissioning chemical missiles with robots
James DeSmet, president and CEO of CRG Automation, explains how his company designed a robotic system to decommission 70,000 chemical M55 rockets at the Bluegrass Army Depot in Kentucky. The system utilizes Kawasaki industrial robots and Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) autonomous mobile robots to package nerve agents into sealed canisters, replacing a dangerous shearing process. DeSmet details the engineering challenges of handling 60-year-old munitions, including warped tubes and leaking agents, and the collaborative process with government experts to meet the 2023 international treaty deadline. The episode also covers recent autonomous vehicle news, including Cruise's driverless rides in San Francisco and Waymo's mapping efforts in New York City.