WASHINGTON — The U.S. Military has taken receipt of its mild and medium Robotic Fight Automobile (RCV) prototypes from trade groups and is placing them via the paces this 12 months forward of a serious company-level soldier evaluation in 2022.
The service took supply of the primary of 4 RCV-Mild automobiles from a QinetiQ North America and Pratt Miller crew — which received the contract to provide the prototypes a 12 months in the past — in November 2020 with the opposite three arriving earlier than the Christmas vacation, Alfred Grein, performing director and deputy govt director of Floor Fight Techniques on the Military Fight Capabilities Improvement Command, mentioned on the Affiliation of the U.S. Military’s International Pressure Subsequent digital symposium on March 16.
The RCV-L is a diesel-electric hybrid with a gross car weight of not more than 8,500 kilos and a most payload of not more than 7,000 kilos, boasting a high velocity of about 40 miles per hour, in keeping with Grein.
The 4 prototypes had been delivered to the Military’s Floor Automobile Techniques Heart the place a crew started integrating the government-developed Robotic Expertise Kernel (RTK) autonomy software program onto these platforms, Grein mentioned.
After a useful checkout, the prototypes had been despatched to Texas A&M College’s Rellis campus the place, over the course of February, the crew was capable of pair them with a Mission Enabling Expertise Demonstrator — or MET-D car — to start the manned-unmanned teaming course of, he added.
Whereas the Military is anticipating to obtain its RCV-Medium prototypes from a Textron, Howe & Howe and FLIR crew beginning on the finish of April via Might, the service took early supply of {a partially} accomplished RCV-M in mid-February with a purpose to start integrating the RTK software program.
RCV-M can also be a diesel-electric hybrid with a gross car weight of 25,000 kilos. The car is provided with a remotely operated 30 mm cannon and has a high velocity of over 25 miles per hour, in keeping with Grein.
The service already performed an RCV evaluation at Fort Carson, Colorado, in 2020, however it was targeted on heavy automobiles and used surrogates, so now it’s making ready to conduct one other soldier operational experiment at Fort Hood, Texas, from June via August of 2022 with its chosen prototypes for the RCV-L and RCV-M.
This 12 months, each the RCV-L and RCV-M will undergo shakedown testing at Camp Grayling, Michigan, from April via September.
“Upon profitable shakedown, paired with our MET-D car and the MUM-T community, it is going to be examined for its potential to manage a Firm set of RCVs consisting of 18 automobiles” — 4 RCV-Ls, 4 RCV-Ms, 4 RCV-Heavy programs (M113 personnel service surrogate) and 6 MET-D management automobiles, Grein mentioned.
“All of that might be operated concurrently,” he mentioned.
The complete course of might be examined at Camp Grayling earlier than transferring all the way down to Fort Hood.
The automobiles‘ subsequent cease might be Military Check and Analysis Command for security testing — each individually and mixed with MET-D — in November earlier than the massive occasion in 2022. The testing ought to wrap up in Might 2022, Grein mentioned.
The Fort Hood experiment will begin with soldier coaching on the automobiles adopted by situational coaching workout routines after which into live-fire coaching workout routines, he added.
“We all know that these occasions are going to undoubtedly assist form the long run for Military robotic programs and the necessities in assembly these functionality wants that we’ve been requested to do by way of the appliance of robotic and autonomous programs,” Grein mentioned.
The Military plans to host yet one more experimentation for RCVs in 2024, however will possible decide to maneuver its RCV-L out of technical maturation and into the engineering and manufacturing improvement section within the second quarter of fiscal 2023. The service would do the identical with the RCV-M program in FY24. The Military plans to award separate contracts for a lead programs integrator for every RCV program.
The service has mentioned there may be potential for an RCV-H program of report to fall considerably behind the sunshine and medium RCVs.