Colleagues from Texas A&M University's Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) are waiting for an invitation to send U. S. -based rescue bots to Japan.

The Russian and Chinese systems compete with the fifty year old U. S. M-109 design, which is a 25 ton vehicle with a crew of five.

Visiting U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and India's Foreign Minister, S. M. Krishna announced the pacts during a joint news conference in New Delhi.