Stick-Um: Robotic Attachment to Moving Vehicles

Foster-Miller proposes to build on its previous work on robotic attachment of packages to moving vehicles. It has found that a combination of acoustic and seismic with z-direction magnetic signature can positively identify the vehicle type as well as provide a decision for a launch point. We have also shown through experiment that a mechanical clamp, certain adhesives and magnetics, pyrotechnically launched, can attach themselves to vehicles moving 30 mph. A hybrid system including all three components is proposed as well as two different means of launching, including signature suppressed pyrotechnic and a wholly fluidic means. A robotic delivery vehicle based on the tracked Lemmings will bring the launch package to the launch site. The proposed Phase I effort will include all full scale hardware experiments of all of the critical subsystems.