Daily News Briefs

Hans Baum has been appointed vice president of European operations for Bruker Daltonics Inc., a Billerica, Mass.-based maker of scientific mass-spectrometry instruments. Baum started his business career with Bruker Daltonik GmbH in Germany in 1987. In 1997, he joined the Bruker Daltonik GmbH board of management, and in 1999 he became a managing director. . . . Elbit Vision Systems Ltd. (EVS) announced it has retained KCSA Public Relations Worldwide to implement an investor relations campaign and to facilitate its expansion into new areas and markets, especially microelectronics and display manufacturing. EVS, based in Yoqneam, Israel and Greenville, S.C., makes automatic optical inspection and quality monitoring systems for the textile, automotive, non-woven, plastics, wafer and LCD industries. . . . iRobot Corp., a Burlington, Mass., manufacturer of mobile robots, announced it has deployed more than 50 PackBots, its reconnaissance and tactical robot, in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company said the robots have assisted in dozens of reconnaissance missions, with only one PackBot lost in combat. PackBots, which search dangerous and inaccessible areas for soldiers, were developed under the Tactical Mobile Robotics program, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). iRobot also announced it has opened a new office in Crystal City, a business complex in Arlington, Va., for its Government & Industrial Robotics division.