A Small, Fast, Unmanned Ground Robotic System

Small unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are playing an increasingly important role in modern warfare. While existing UGVs have real value to the warfighter, particularly for EOD and CBRN use cases, they fall short in many scenarios encountered by special forces: Many existing platforms are heavy: MTRS Increment II weighs in at over 150 lbs. Existing platforms are often slow over terrain: the top speed of the MTRS and MTRS Increment II platforms is under 1.5 m/s.  Other UGVs are faster, but struggle over terrain.  This limits UGV utility to special forces, where a high operational tempo is often critical. Many existing platforms provide limited sensing and situational awareness, greatly increasing the time required to execute even simple tasks.  All currently fielded systems present high cognitive load for their operators: UGV operation has a significant cost to engagement with other operational tasks. This Phase I SBIR proposal will establish feasibility and initial concept for a small UGV in the 40lb – 100lb range that addresses the issues listed above, follows cyber survivability best practices, and leverages Carnegie Robotics (CR) autonomy capabilities to provide unobtrusive operator assistance functions that leave the operator in full control, but reduce cognitive load.