Bomb Appraisal Officer has Impressive Resume
News & Happenings
May 19, 2008
Before joining TSA, David Platt (pointing
with left hand) trained soldiers on
SWORDS invention. Pictured far left is
Sgt. 1st Class Scott "Smitty" Smith for
whom one of the deployed SWORDS was
named after he was killed in combat.
Inventing the first armed robot to be deployed in combat by the U.S. Army is on the impressive resume of David Platt, a bomb appraisal officer in Orlando who teamed with behavior detection and transportation security officers recently to find components for an improvised explosive device (IED) in a passenger's checked bag.
Platt, whose discovery at the Florida airport resulted in a well-publicized arrest, also wrote the specifications for a widely-used robot that picks up unexploded ordnance and IEDs.
Platt joined TSA about a year ago after a 20-year military career as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. Following Sept. 11, 2001, Platt was asked to do search and rescue work at the World Trade Center using robotics. Impressed with his work there, the Army asked him to arm a robot. In 2003, he invented the Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Direct Action System (SWORDS), the Army's first armed and unmanned ground vehicle ever deployed in combat. SWORDS, which shoots a M240 and M249 automatic weapons, has been deployed to the 5th Special Forces Group in Baghdad, Iraq, and to the 3rd Infantry Division.
SWORDS was featured in Time magazine's 2004 cover story on Most Amazing Inventions and has been shown on the History and Discovery channels.
Platt also wrote the specifications for the Talon Robot. Deployed in Bosnia in 1999, it saves lives by discovering IEDs and roadside bombs.
"I love being a BAO because the people here really care about the job they are doing and I enjoy supporting them in their efforts to keep the public safe," said Platt, who also was a contractor at the U.S. special operations command from 2004 to 2007.
