Army To Fund Robotics ToolkitArmy To Fund Robotics Toolkit

WASHINGTON — The proliferation of unmanned vehicle technologies used by the U.S. military has prompted an Army command to fund development of a toolkit that could be used for its entire fleet of unmanned ground vehicles.

The U.S. Army's Transportation Command (Warren, Mich.) will fund a six-month research project to develop a low-cost "robot infrastructure toolkit" that can be used for a wide range of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs).

RE2 Inc., a Carnegie Mellon University spin-off (Pittsburgh), said Tuesday (Jan. 3) it will develop a toolkit focusing on specialized communication components and robotic manipulators with a common control interface.

The project will also focus on:

Developing a system design that includes vehicle interfaces, operator controls, manipulators and communications components. Establishing performance goals and cost-benefit analyses for communication components. Determining the feasibility of using the toolkit with the U.S. military's current Joint Architecture of Unmanned Systems (JAUS), which includes robot controllers and communication links. The military currently uses small robots for surveillance, under-car inspection and bomb disposal. Since robots have been developed for a range of tasks, the number of platforms has expanded. As a result, the Army wants to reduce the cost of fielding small UGV technologies. RE2 said in a statement that it has focused on open-systems modular designs, JAUS-based vehicle management and control, sensor and systems integration, Ethernet and serial communications development.