iRobot and Boeing are teaming to develop a next-generation Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV).
Called SUGV Early and weighing less than 30 pounds, iRobot’s non-vacuum skills include remote reconnaissance and real-time intelligence. Images can be relayed in real time to field commanders from small unmanned aerial vehicles.
It’s based on PackBot, a series of robots by iRobot, a company formed my MIT wonderkind Roger Brooks in 1991.
The PackBot explorer has a camera head equipped with multiple cameras, laser pointers, audio and other sensors. More than 500 PackBots are currently on station in Iraq and Afghanistan, with hundreds more on the way.
Maj. Gen. Charles Cartwright told reporters that the system is an ever-evolving series of technologies that will be upgraded and changed based on what soldiers say they need and want. The entire system is expected to be in place by about 2014, since it depends on the Future Combat Systems, which has run into a few snags.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are becoming autonomous, rather than remotely controlled by a human on the ground.
At a three-day U.S. Navy conference in Arlington, Va this week, the small businesses presented about a dozen UAV-related designs, including models that are intended to do things like take off and land on water and fly in swarms.
The U.S. Army eventually hopes to put at least one tiny UAV in every platoon in Iraq, Kevin Blenkhorn, director of unmanned systems for 21st Century Systems (left), said at the conference.
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