Highly-Maneuverable, High-Speed Inspection Vehicle

Military and Law Enforcement groups are increasingly relying on small Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to perform life-threatening tasks ranging from under car inspection to Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD). Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are becoming more prevalent in Iraq and Afghanistan. To combat the proliferation of IEDs, more and more small robots are being employed to maintain greater stand-off distances between soldiers and the devices. Currently deployed robots each offer various benefits such as hands-on inspection capability, high-speed reconnaissance abilities, or highly-maneuverable functionality. Our unique electro-mechanical solution, coupled with our innovative control algorithms offer a new inspection robot which fuses the strengths of the currently fielded robots into a next generation inspection robot. The robot features hybrid-electric power for increased missions, software and communications based on the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) to promote interoperability, a next-generation Operator Control Unit (OCU) making use of COTS components, and a plug-n-play manipulator arm that can support current and future inspection tools.