Lt-Col Peter Miller / Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment (MVEE) · military or security robot
Wheelbarrow
A remote-controlled bomb-disposal robot invented by a retired British Army officer for use in Northern Ireland, developed through many marks (Mk7, Mk8 and later).
- Price
- —Not published
- Height
- —Not published
- Weight
- —Not published
- Payload
- —Not published
- Speed
- —Not published
- Battery
- —Not published
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Why it matters
Pioneering bomb-disposal robot; more than 400 were reported destroyed in action.
Real-world use
British Army EOD units in Northern Ireland, mainland Britain and Iraq from the 1970s to 2019.
Timeline
- Released
- 2019
Maker
Lt-Col Peter Miller / Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment (MVEE)Government lab · Chertsey, United KingdomPublic attention
A historic robot: no longer sold or in use, so it is not ranked against current machines.
- No Wikipedia article of its own yet
- 1 news story from reputable press listed on this page
Measures how much people read and write about a robot, not how good it is. Measured 2026-10-13; same method for every robot. How it is measured
What’s inside
The parts the company has talked about publicly.
- Movement
- Tracks
- How it runs
- Remote-controlled. Bomb-disposal teams operated Wheelbarrow remotely to handle explosive ordnance disposal tasks.
- Actuators & motors
- Began as a remotely controlled, electrically powered wheelbarrow chassis; later versions improved manoeuvrability.
- Hands
- Carried disruptor tools such as the Pigstick water-jet disruptor; later variants added better object handling.
- Sensors & vision
- Cameras for remote viewing; later Northrop Grumman variants added chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear sensors.
- Other details
- Let bomb-disposal officers deal with IEDs remotely instead of making the 'long walk'.
From the maker
Wheelbarrow is the only machine from Lt-Col Peter Miller / Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment (later Northrop Grumman variants) in the atlas.
Watch Wheelbarrow
Made, sold and where
Unit counts are usually company figures; analysts often disagree.
- Price
- Not published
- How to get one
- No official buying page found
- Built
- Hundreds; more than 400 were destroyed in operations
- Sold or delivered
- Military supply; later variants produced by Northrop Grumman
- Where it is sold or used
- United Kingdom
- Customers and pilots
- British Army bomb-disposal units (321 EOD in Northern Ireland, 11 EOD Regiment) in Northern Ireland, mainland Britain and Iraq; retired in 2019
News
The latest 1, newest first. Summaries are ours; tap through for the original.
- UK orders T7 robots to replace Wheelbarrow
The UK MOD announced a contract worth up to £55m for 56 Harris T7 bomb-disposal robots, which went on to replace Wheelbarrow in British Army service.
Defence Equipment & Support (UK MOD)
Sources
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