According to this 2016 gameranx video:
The US military actually uses an Xbox 360 controller for EOD robots - which are essentially robots that pick up bombs, or deliver bombs.
(EOD stands for Explosive Ordinance Disposal.)
Is that true?
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Sign up to join this communityAccording to this 2016 gameranx video:
The US military actually uses an Xbox 360 controller for EOD robots - which are essentially robots that pick up bombs, or deliver bombs.
(EOD stands for Explosive Ordinance Disposal.)
Is that true?
This may not be the robot shown in the video, but the XM1216 Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, a smaller version of iRobot's Packbot, uses a "a ruggedized handheld controller.1"
The controller can be seen around the 2:42 minute mark of this B-roll footage from iRobot's media kit.
Furthermore, the following picture (taken from the PackBot Wikipedia page, and provided by the U.S. Navy before that) clearly shows a 3rd-party console controller in the bottom-right corner:
And this picture, taken from the XM1216 Wikipedia page and provided by the U.S. Army, clearly shows an Xbox 360 controller:
In short, they may not be able to "plug in any Xbox 360 controller", but they certainly use similar-looking controllers and, with the proper ruggedization, may even be able to use off-market options.