The U.S. Army is “unhappy” with the projected cost and schedule of two new unmanned ground vehicle programs — the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport (SMET) and Leader-Follower — and is mulling how to proceed with them, a service official said March 22.
The Army needs to have an “honest dialogue” about the programs, “and we are doing this,” said Brig. Gen. John George, director of force development for the Army’s G-8, which coordinates the service’s funding, equipping and fielding efforts. “If we have to adjust requirement documents or we have to adjust our acquisition approach to put something in the hands of soldiers faster, we will do that.”
Despite receiving a funding boost for robotics last year, the Army continues to have a limited modernization budget, which is about half the size it was eight years ago, George said at a National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) ground robotics conference in Springfield, Va. As a result, the Army has to make “hard choices,” he said.
SMET is designed to haul a squad’s gear to lighten the load on soldiers during long patrols. At the NDIA conference, Estonia-based Milrem and QinetiQ North America [QNA] of Waltham, Mass., displayed Titan, their planned offering for SMET. Titan, which is 79-inches long, 83-inches wide and 40-inches high, combines Milrem’s THeMIS UGV with QinetiQ’s control technology. Roboteam, an American-Israeli firm, has said it will offer a vehicle for SMET that is based on its Professional Robot cargo carrier.
Leader-Follower couples a lead manned vehicle with one or more driverless vehicles to form a convoy. In testing, the Army has already “done a lot of work” on the program, amassing more than 100,000 miles on trucks, George said.
The Army, meanwhile, is proceeding with another new UGV program, the Man Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) Increment 2. MTRS Increment 2, which is in source selection, is designed to allow troops to find and clear landmines, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices at stand-off ranges. It will also allow soldiers to deploy chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense sensors from a distance.