Crusher - futuristic Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle

UPI experiments encompass vehicle safety, the effects of limited communications bandwidth and GPS infrastructure on vehicle performance, and how vehicles and their payloads can be effectively operated and supervised.

By mid 2006, NREC will integrate its latest automation technology onto both Crusher vehicles. A combination of ladar and camera systems allow the vehicles to dynamically react to obstacles and travel through mission waypoints spaced over a kilometer apart.

The use of overhead data via terrain data analysis will continue to be utilized for global planning. Over the next year these two vehicles will analyze, plan, and execute mobility missions over extreme terrains without any human interaction at all. Crusher’s suspension system allows it to maintain high offroad speeds across extreme terrains

DARPA created the Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle (UGCV) program to develop vehicle prototypes based on novel designs unrestrained by the need to accommodate human crews. The resulting prototypes demonstrate advanced configurations and technology that are applicable to UGV design programs for the US Army’s Future Combat System (FCS).

NREC with its three first level subcontractors (Boeing, Timoney Technology and DRS-TEM) developed and tested Spinner, a highly durable, invertible, six-wheel-drive, hybrid-powered vehicle that responds to the need of a UGCV to surmount challenging terrain obstacles, be easily teleoperated, and able to withstand an occasional moderate crash and rapidly recover.

Crusher is being equipped with state-of-the-art perception capabilities, and will be used to validate the key technologies necessary for an unmanned ground vehicle to perform military missions autonomously. Crusher will be equipped with representative sensing and weapons payloads for planned field experiments. DARPA Director Tony Tether noted, “With the combination of a robust, highly mobile vehicle design and an innovative autonomous control system, Crusher defines the state-of-the-art in autonomous unmanned ground vehicles systems. DARPA is pleased to be working with the Army to bring this new capability to fruition.”

“The Future Combat Systems (Brigade Combat Team) program has been working with DARPA’s UPI program for some time now, leveraging their advancements in robotics field testing, perception algorithm development, autonomy, and, more recently, in understanding wheeled system design characteristics for mobility and remote control latency and bandwidth effects on mobility performance,” explained Maj. Gen. Charles Cartwright, Program Manager Future Combat Systems (Brigade Combat Team).

“The FCS (BCT), Lead Systems Integrator, and platform providers have all witnessed and participated in dialog with DARPA and Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center related to Spinner and now Crusher experimentation. This interaction has been of great benefit to the FCS program, and we look forward to continued interaction and transition of technologies from this new vehicle system to our FCS UGV systems.” “The two new Crusher vehicles are a major improvement in unmanned ground vehicle capability,” added Larry Jackel, DARPA UPI program manager. “The original Spinner UGCV is an excellent platform, but in shakeout experiments, the new Crushers have already outperformed Spinner in all aspects. Combined with its autonomous control system, the Crusher defines the state-of-the-art in autonomous unmanned ground vehicles systems.” The UPI program will conduct rigorous field experiments of the two Crusher vehicles and their perception and payload systems, with experiments planned at Fort Carson, Colo., this summer. The program will culminate in 2007 with Army users operating Crusher vehicles during representative missions in natural terrain. The UPI effort will merge all Crusher functions (mission planning, perception monitoring, vehicle monitoring, and payload operation) into an operator workstation interface and determine interaction requirements via experimentation.