Who built the large-scale cell phone sonar device?

Question

In the Christopher Nolan Batman movies, Lucious Fox seems to be the primary technologic mastermind. In fact, we're never shown Batman/Bruce actually inventing anything new himself - just devising clever uses for existing technology.

Fox was the one who created the cell phone sonar technology until Bruce redirects all the money in R&D to build a large scale version of the device.

Bruce explains that he is spending the money on a government contract and "playing this one close to the chest".

With everything going on, it doesn't seem like Bruce or Alfred would have time (or even enough knowledge) to build such a large scale version of the device by themselves. Was there someone else involved in its construction?

Answer 1

Yes, the gentleman (and perhaps ladies) that work in the R&D department. Lucius Fox didn't build Batman's arsenal single handed. Instead, he had merely gathered up the results of the various classified contracts they had won from the government during Wayne Enterprise's time as a defense contractor (established in Rises). WE is basically under the sole control of Bruce Wayne at the time (established in Begins) and Bruce could easily tell a working group "hey, you guys are reporting directly to me and this is what you are working on". Imagine Apple level secrecy with no shareholders to answer to. The person that would normally blow the whistle on that is Lucius himself, and he was personally assured that it was intentional and asked to stay out of it by his boss.

As for the technology itself, I'm sure that Bruce and Lucius have vetted the guys in those positions fully and wrapping them up in nondisclosure agreements. As I think about it, it's entirely possible that the guys who built those things think that Bruce Wayne is supplying Batman, but are so good at keeping their mouths shut they never mention it. It could even be a sort of open secret in certain departments, made up of people who are smarter than the outside auditor in TDK. Bruce isn't Tony Stark and he has no problem with finding trusted people to help him in his work.

UPDATE

We actually see a few of these wrench turners at the end of Rises, when Lucius Fox is examining the Bat.

Answer 2

It's been a few years since I watched this... but as far as I understand it's a software product covertly loaded onto all the phones that WE sells or provides service to. As such, the scale of the system is dependent on loading it onto new phones and doing so on 500,000 phones is as simple as doing so on 10 of them. A relatively small team of software developers and engineers could pull this off, perhaps numbering as few as two dozen individuals.