Funding for iRobot's SUGV product, the cornerstone of growth for the military side of the business, is somewhere within a $3.2 billion budget request for the Army's Brigade Combat Team modernization program. The budget last year for the program, a descendant of the Future Combat Systems project, was $2.6 billion, so that appears to be a very healthy increase. While the program overall may be subject to trimming by Congress, I personally doubt the SUGV is in trouble. It is the one piece of equipment in that whole program that ALWAYS gets mentioned as a proven piece of technology that is already saving lives right now, and everything I've seen suggests soldiers want them in the field ASAP.
It's not clear yet how much of this will go to SUGV, which has been approved for low rate initial production. The bulk of that spending is still going into R&D for the overall project, which includes complex software that intends to connect the various new technologies being employed.
I haven't seen any detail yet besides the $3.2 billion figure in any story I've read. Other pieces of the defense budget that can affect iRobot include anti-IED portions of the budget, possibly the upcoming Afghanistan war supplemental and to a lesser extent DARPA. I'm sure this all will be discussed at the Feb. 18 earnings conference call.
Tags: iRobot, robot
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