Autonomous Ground Vehicles for Airfield Support

KalScott Engineering Inc. concluded a 24-month Phase II SBIR monitored from RSO/WPAFB in Aug 2023. Under this SBIR, Kalscott developed, demonstrated and delivered two autonomous ground vehicles for airfield duties such as foreign object debris (FOD) collection, AGE-equipment towing, materiel delivery across airfields, perimeter surveillance, mowing, etc. Base leadership at an Air National Guard group have worked with KalScott Engineering to identify and scope the technology insertion opportunity and to extend this work under TACFI for their specific needs. The proposed work is based on lessons learned in an exercise at another USAF site in 2023, where the ability of KalScott's autonomous ground rover for such tasks was demonstrated. In this proposed TACFI, we intend to extend the capability of those vehicles to operations in close proximity to air vehicles (via improved navigation methods), while improving the rover's endurance, range, and payload carrying capacity, and deliver two autonomous vehicles (a Polaris Rover, and a Wolverine) to the end user for evaluation and use at an ANG site.