Academia teams with US Army on robotic combat vehicle research
Special centre at Clemson University will investigate off-road autonomy and manned-unmanned teaming
The US Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center is working with researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina to study how Bradley IFVs and in-service APCs can be converted to autonomous operation.
This research is underpinned by an $18 million DoD grant to build a Virtual Prototyping of Ground Systems (VIPR-GS) Center at Clemson.
A multi-year project will involve 60 university faculty members across seven engineering disciplines. It will focus on off-road autonomy for multi-scale vehicle fleets, including manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T); propulsion systems and smart energy; and virtual prototyping and digital engineering for autonomy-enabled off-road vehicles.
Researchers will build and validate various virtual models and simulations for off-road vehicles with advanced electrified propulsion, situational intelligence, AI-enabled autonomy and team-routing algorithms.
Development of robotic or autonomous combat vehicles feeds into one of the main modernisation priorities for the US Army. In trials held at Fort Carson in July-August (pictured), modified Bradleys and modified M113 APCs were tested to help develop learning objectives for the MUM-T concept.
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