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Soldier Resupply Demonstration Merges Unmanned Ground & Air Vehicles

The U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin's 'Extend the Reach of the Warfighter through Robotics' (ERWR) demonstration took place at Ft. Benning, GA on August 7th. The purpose of the ERWR program is to show the new capabilities that arise from merging unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned air vehicles. The Lockheed Martin Squad Mission Support System Unmanned Ground Vehicle was equipped with a Gyrocam 9-inch mid-wave surveillance sensor, and was flown by sling load into the 'hostile' area using a Lockheed Martin K-MAX® unmanned helicopter, and a tactical resupply and surveillance mission was conducted in autonomous and tele-operated modes.

Topics:
Aerospace Automation Aviation Defense Robotics Sensors

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    Transcript

    00:00:13 [Music] hi I'm Matt Dominico I'm tardx program manager on the extending the reach of the war fighter through robotics program the purpose of this program is to show that by merging unmanned ground vehicles with unmanned air vehicles you can take those two capabilities together combined to create a whole new capability that allows you to perform new Mission sets

    00:00:36 that otherwise could not be performed right now or performed a much greater risk to the war fighter in this demonstration a commander on the ground elects to complete a planned resupply of an infantry company that is defending a village you will notice during the demonstration that due to safety reasons we have a safety pilot on board though

    00:01:01 the full mission will be performed [Music] autonomously as you can see the kmax unmaned helicopter is already attached via sling load to the smss unmanned ground vehicle here you can see the kmax taking off and it will make two loops around the Airfield before coming in to The Landing Zone

    00:01:31 while it's in route the smss Dy cam sensors will already be turned on and can be used to survey The Landing [Music] Zone here the kmax is dropping off the smss and you can see the hook disconnecting while it's in route the smss is already running and it can begin immediately traveling to the resupply

    00:02:09 point you know technology G us a greater capability for resupply and we have other ways of doing it what we were limited in the past it provides us another way of tackling Soldier load if we can get a greater confidence level and resupply soldiers take what they need to and they have confidence we can get resupply we can take some of that burden off of

    00:02:33 them at the resupply point for safety reasons the remote operator turns off the smss engines and the safety operator climbs on board and hands the supplies to the soldiers after the resupply is complete the smss Maneuvers autonomously to the observation point it raises the gyro cam in order to perform reconnaissance and then monitors

    00:03:02 the area for enemy infiltration the remote operator monitoring the gyam sensor sees the opposing forces and notifies the commander on the ground if this was an actual Mission the commander on the ground would confirm the threat and launch a quick reaction force to interdict the enemy forces he may also be able to conduct a

    00:03:24 call for fire mission that destroys the enemy We Believe this technology that you've witnessed is the right solution at the right time and the Robotics are able to do the dull the dangerous and the dirty so that humans are able to apply their intelligence to the more critical tasks that are required for combat operations it offers a complimentary

    00:03:52 supplemental uh capabilities to the soldiers not to replace them but to help them be more effective it's just another tool in their kit bag that they can use when [Music] appropriate for