Unmanned Ground Vehicle Demo II: Demonstration A

I he military has an anticipated need for a remotely controlled ground T system to perform reconnaissance; surveillance; target acquisition; patrolling; and nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) detection. In particular, the U.S. Army Infantry School would like the system to operate in the most dangerous areas of the modem battlefield, open terrain that is highly trafficable. This has led to the premise that the system should be fast. Secondly, discovering the enemy's location is often dangerous with the cost assessed in human lives. From these requirements emerged the Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) programs. Emphasis is on effective robotic technology that has multiservice applications and is unique to unmanned vehicles on the ground [UGVMP, 19931. The maturity of these robotic technologies will be confirmed in two demonstrations: UGV Demo I held in 1992, and UGV Demo I1 held in 1996. UGV Demo I focused primarily on teleoperation, while the UGV Demo II is designed to complement the first demonstration by focusing on supervised autonomy. The primary goal of the UGV Demo II program is to demonstrate the utility of advanced UGV systems to conduct tasks that enhance the Department of Defense force structure. This demonstration will combine both an offensive and defensive operation in a militarily relevant situation. For offensive operation, four cooperating UGVs will initiate a movement-to-contact scenario. The vehicles will conduct a screening operation for a manned force using bounding overwatch over semi-arid terrain. Once in overwatch positions, they will use a reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) mission module to observe threats; and to locate, detect, assess, and designate threats for indirect fire. For defensive operation, the vehicles will conduct a retrograde scenario. Four cooperating UGVs will screen a manned force by sequentially occupying preplanned defensive positions to maximize damage to advancing enemy forces. Once the commander determines that the enemy forces have been weakened, the vehicles will move to preplanned loca-