SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Residents may have noticed the RCMP has a new member during an incident at the Northern Lites Motel that resulted in the closure of a major downtown street for most of the day last month.

Woody, the tactical robot shown here, was developed by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology with input from the Alberta RCMP and Edmonton Police Force. According to Mark Archibald, project head, Woody is a police force's "eyes and ears" during dangerous situations. - photo courtesy of Mark Archibald

A tactical robot, which G Division acquired earlier in 2014, helped resolve a tense seven-hour standoff where RCMP dealt with a man who had allegedly barricaded himself in a room of the motel.

The incident ended with the arrest of David Brownlee, 37, who is now facing seven charges, including forcible confinement and assault with a weapon. His next court date is Jan. 20.

During the course of the day, the RCMP's robot could be seen moving between the door and window of the motel room containing Brownlee. The standoff ended when RCMP blew open Brownlee's motel door. The suspect emerged soon after and was subsequently arrested.

Citing operational security, RCMP Const. Elenore Sturko would not speak in specifics on how the robot contributed to resolving the standoff, but she did credit it for keeping members of the force, the public and the suspect safe.

"It's a very useful piece of equipment," she said. "And we are certainly happy to have the robot as part of a bunch of other tools and techniques we use in our operations."

Sturko wouldn't say how many times her division has used the robot, how it was acquired or how much it cost.

To get an idea of how the RCMP uses tactical robots in a general sense, Yellowknifer reached out to Mark Archibald, chair of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) to talk about a robot he developed with a team of students for the Alberta RCMP three years ago.

"The RCMP approached us in 2010," explained Archibald. "They had a commercially developed robot they weren't satisfied with. It was difficult to control, a little slow and it didn't use modern communications technology."

In a project that introduced students to experience working with unmanned ground vehicles, NAIT developed a prototype with input from the Alberta RCMP and Edmonton Police Department. The project wrapped up in 2012.

Archibald shared what some of the forces' most critical priorities were while designing of the prototype, which the team affectionately named Woody.

"We know the police service want to send eyes and ears into a potentially dangerous situation without putting people at risk," he said.

"They wanted their people to be able to control the machine and point its camera. It could be a hostage situation or whatever. Somewhere where they don't want to send a member."

RCMP tactical robots have found themselves in the line of fire before. In 2010, Leo Crockwell, a 55-year-old Cape Breton man, fired on a robot in two different incidences during an eight-day standoff in Bay Bulls, Nova Scotia. The incident made national headlines and resulted in a four-year prison sentence for Crockwell.

Neither the RCMP or the Edmonton Police Department ended up buying Woody. Despite that, Archibald considers the project a success - with one exception.

"In urban situations, where they would need to get into a building and go upstairs, they wanted us to accomplish faster stair-climbing, which proved tricky," he said.

"It's very difficult to get a robot to climb stairs. It certainly could climb hills with snow, dirt, grass or concrete, but in several live trials . we had to get to the second floor and push our robot up the stairs."

Archibald added he's heard the Alberta RCMP did end up using ideas from Woody's design in enhancing their own robots.

"A zipper mast, which allows the camera to raise up three metres from the robot was one improvement they incorporated into their robot," he said.

"They can remotely lift the camera up; in some demonstrations here at the institute we were able to remotely push ceiling tiles up and look up into the ceiling area - that's a pretty cool feature."

Woody now travels to Alberta schools for demonstrations and is a star of NAIT open houses.

"The school kids love it," said Archibald.

"They can come by and see what's involved with making prototypes and it helps them understand how electrical engineering is used to solve certain problems."