Connecting strands in the army - General dynamics award to build robotic cargo carriers

[williamcll]

After years of competition and designing from companies like boston dynamics, the united states army has decided to give the S-MET contract to General dynamics land system to build their robotic mules to carry goods around warzones. It is expected to deliver 624 units in the second quarter of 2021.

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The United States Army has finally chosen a company to develop the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport (SMET). General Dynamics has been chosen to provide the Army with an unmanned combat vehicle that will assist infantry squads by carrying most of their equipment and food into combat alongside them, so in other words: a combat soldier’s best friend.

The Army has awarded General Dynamics with a $162.4 million, five year contract to supply the SMET system.

The system will be able to carry up to 1,000 pounds of soldier’s combat equipment over 60 miles. The system can run for 72 hours and generate power for charging soldier’s electronics.

More often than not, infantry soldiers carry excessive amounts of equipment during training and operations. In many cases soldiers often could find themselves carrying over 60% of their body weight for dozens of miles at a time. The SMET will help relieve a lot of this burden, allowing soldiers the luxury of staying lightweight while still having all of their most critical equipment nearby.

The Army has chosen General Dynamic’s pitch at the SMET over three other companies competing to supply the Army with the UGV, Polaris Industries Inc., HDT Global Inc., and Howe and Howe Technologies Inc.

General Dynamics have developed the Multi-Utility Tactical Transport (MUTT) to serve as the Army’s SMET. While the MUTT could be controlled remotely, the UGV is capable of automatically following troops. The technology works as a force multiplier and has been engineered to accommodate new payloads, controllers, and increased levels of autonomy, according to Militaryaerospace.com.

As part of the contract’s agreements, General Dynamics will supply the Army with the MUTT as well as maintenance work, training, field service support, system support, and storage. The Army plans on buying about 5,700 MUTTs, depending on their price and amount of government funding.

Work on the contract is expected to end by October 2024.

Source:https://i-hls.com/archives/96163
http://soldiersystems.net/2019/11/14/robotic-mules-set-to-modernize-infantry-brigade-combat-teams/
Thoughts: Having a small car to carry your guns everywhere is definitely convenient when you think of how much each soldier is trained to carry, but I do have concerns about how reliable and secure it would be. 

[FunkmastaFlex]

I wonder if its amphibious, with those giant tires and all. Or if it could be adapted to be amphibious.

[JZStudios]

I've been playing Death Stranding with a buddy and am now hyper-sensitive to any time I see or hear the words strand, bridge, or connect.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I'd rather see Big Dog out in the field over this. Nothing's more scary than a robotic dog that doesn't seem fettered by anything.

[CarlBar]

Honestly whilst scale is hard to judge it looks to big to me. Your getting towards the point where a jeep or similar could do the same thing. At which point why not use that. It's at the sub jeep sized that i'd expect somthing like this to be useful. Not to mention the issues the size is going to cause with not being able to get places the troops can.

[LeSheen]

In before soldiers getting run over by it. Or it going "rogue" and delivering the equipment to the enemy.

[amdorintel]

On 11/19/2019 at 8:26 AM, FunkmastaFlex said:

I wonder if its amphibious, with those giant tires and all. Or if it could be adapted to be amphibious.

its an argo, it can go in water. it floats like a boat, but its very slow because the treads of the tires are the paddles

[Taf the Ghost]

Autonomous Military cargo carriers are actually the biggest market for "drives itself" products. Not that it comes up much in discussion. 

[dizmo]

Is that really all it is? I was hoping it'd be more like those robotic dog things they've been making...which honestly make much more sense to me in terms of mobility. Yes, more parts to break, but it wouldn't have to have a path cleared for it. This looks like an atv without a seat...which begs the question, why not just make slightly larger, tactical ATVs. The base is already there. It'd be multitudes cheaper. Plus, you know...they could sit on them. 

 

On 11/19/2019 at 8:36 AM, JZStudios said:

I've been playing Death Stranding with a buddy and am now hyper-sensitive to any time I see or hear the words strand, bridge, or connect.

How's the Amazon Delivery Boy Simulator going for you? 

On 11/19/2019 at 11:16 AM, Mira Yurizaki said:

I'd rather see Big Dog out in the field over this. Nothing's more scary than a robotic dog that doesn't seem fettered by anything.

That's what I was expecting! I am, needless to say, disappointed. 

[maartendc]

How is this better or cheaper than just sending a truck or Jeep or other vehicle alongside a squad of soldiers?

[GoldenLag]

4 minutes ago, maartendc said:

How is this better or cheaper than just sending a truck or Jeep or other vehicle alongside a squad of soldiers?

trucks and jeeps need to accomodate people. people take up room. 

 

also people have a tendency to not like being unprotected.  people also get tired. 

 

while maintenence personel are needed, its really cuts down costs on personel. which can be spent on maintenence personel

[Nicnac]

Lame. Big dog would’ve been cool

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, dizmo said:

How's the Amazon Delivery Boy Simulator going for you? 

I don't like how awkward it can be to climb over stuff, and then Sam Reedus trips and eats shit, and then the BB cries through the controller and I have to motion control to get it to stop.

Otherwise I'm enjoying it. There's a lack on environmental variety though. So far I've gone from ~D.C. to Mississipi/Alabama and it all looks eerily like Iceland.

[Mira Yurizaki]

9 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

trucks and jeeps need to accomodate people. people take up room. 

 

also people have a tendency to not like being unprotected.  people also get tired. 

 

while maintenence personel are needed, its really cuts down costs on personel. which can be spent on maintenence personel

It's also another logistical item to worry about, which brings its own set of issues. Besides, I highly doubt this thing is fully autonomous or even remotely autonomous maybe outside of "go straight" (the military is very weary of relying on fully or even mostly autonomous things). Which means someone has to drive the thing. If it isn't from a remote ground station (which again, brings its own set of troubles), it's someone in the squad with basically an RC controller. Still though, it's wireless and that lends itself to its inherent issues.

 

The only plus this has over a regular vehicle is maintenance wouldn't be as bad and it's less likely to have reliability issues by virtue of being simpler mechanically.

[GoldenLag]

37 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

The only plus this has over a regular vehicle is maintenance wouldn't be as bad and it's less likely to have reliability issues by virtue of being simpler mechanically.

Its likely these would mostly be used in more risky supply convoys of sorts. 

 

And also serve for a testing ground for further developments. There is no testing like field testing and 2-3 iterations from now i can see it being a nice tool in certain operations on foreign soil.