SoylentNews

girlwhowaspluggedout writes:

"The US Border Patrol has a new tool in its battle against the tunnels that are used to smuggle in drugs from Mexico. Since the cartels' diggers operate outside the range of the agency's cameras, motions detectors, and drones, and because filling the tunnels with concrete hasn't stopped the smugglers, the US Border Patrol now regularly employs robots to search through the underground drug trafficking routes.

The Border Patrol operates four remote-controlled robots along the US-Mexico border. Three of the four are assigned to its station in Nogales, Arizona, the final destination for most of the tunnels that have been discovered so far near the southern border. The agency's robots, which include Applied Research Associates' Pointman Tactical Robot and Inuktun Services' Versatrax 300, can easily fit in closed quarters. The tunnel that the Border Patrol shut down last month, for example though it was equipped with electric lighting, ventilation fans, and wood shoring was only 3 feet and high 2 feet wide. It spanned a whopping 481 feet, the largest tunnel discovered in Nogales by the Border Patrol.

The robots' ability to travel through areas where the air is unsafe to breath for extended periods is especially valuable in Nogales, AZ, whose popularity with drug smugglers is due to its sewer system, which is easily accessible from the adjacent city of Heroica Nogales, Mexico."