<title>Overview of the Demo III UGV program</title>

Abstract

Planning for future military capabilities assumes the availability of highly mobile, agile, rapidly deployable forces. Incorporation of robotic systems into future force structure to reduce casualties, increase tactical reach, counter battle fatigue, and reduce logistics burdens for rapid reaction forces offers one potential pathway for achieving this goal. The Demo III Unmanned Ground Vehicle Program is designed to advance and demonstrate the technology required to develop future unmanned ground combat vehicles through three major thrusts: (1) concerted technology development; (2) modeling, simulation and experimentation; and (3) technology integration and evaluation with users. Demo III focuses on demonstration of technology that will enable the development of small, highly agile, unmanned vehicles capable of off-road, semi- autonomous operation at speeds of up to 32 km/hr during daylight and 16 km/hr at night by summer 2001.