Affordable Electric Unmanned Ground Vehicle Force Protection Sensor System -- 19-058

This project develops novel capabilities for Army Force Protection whereby the confluence of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV), self driving car science and technology, along with commercially available components are leveraged to provide a deployable sentry with the goal of a broader surveillance footprint outside the FOB perimeter. Building on Phase 1 results, our system targets a price point of $10k per unit in production. This is an order of magnitude reduction over militarized unmanned systems, allowing these to be considered consumable items. The use of a fully autonomous vehicle to transit to designated surveillance locations and automatically deploy elevated sensors keeps warfighters out of harm’s way. These low cost commercial components integrated onto a purpose built chassis hits a price point not currently available on the UGV market but essential to meet the demands of improved and extended Situational Awareness for the FOB. Low cost commodity EO, IR, Acoustic, and RF sensors, when coupled to our advanced software systems will provide unprecedented awareness around the FOB. Our approach of providing a consumable/attritable configuration allows for a lifecycle support model that does not maintain and sustain these vehicles, thus eliminating a large component of lifecycle cost.