Testing
Underway for Demo III Autonomous Scout Vehicles
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The Demo III team is making steady progress in their from-the-ground-up development of a new generation of autonomous vehicles. In the combination machine shop / electronics lab at Robotic Systems Technology (RST), prime contractor for the project, the base vehicle came together in the spring, custom designed to pack in as much robotics and surveillance technology as possible and still fit within military cargo planes. As previously reported in IVQ, the US Department of Defense is investing $25M over three years to fund RST and a host of subcontractors in developing a capability intended to keep soldiers well away from unknown territory, while the scouting mission is left to these smart vehicles. Design requirements include the ability to handle off-road terrain at 20 mph, understand the complexities of the environment (ditches, fence lines, etc.) and intelligently choose a viable path to accomplish the mission. They must also operate on normal highways at 40 mph while adjusting to traffic and other roadway obstacles.
Demonstrations are scheduled each September through 2001. The team is working under an ambitious schedule
to present demonstrations of progress each September through 2001.
The 1999 demo will be held at the US Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground
in Maryland. According to Jay Kurtz, RST technical lead for
the Autonomous Mobility subsystem for the vehicle, basic navigation capability
(using military precision GPS) has been integrated and is under test as
of press time. Shortly, obstacle avoidance sensors will be installed
— a laser scanner rangefinder and a high resolution 77 GHz radar.
Day / night stereo vision will also be integrated. Testing will continue
throughout the summer, and a second vehicle will be built in time for the
September demo, as system requirements call for cooperative operations
amongst several autonomous vehicles.
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For more information ... ... contact: Jeff Jackowski, Demo III
contract manager, ARMY TACOM, or Scott Myers, Program Manager, Robotic
Systems Technology, 410.876.9200, scott@rst.com
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