The Defense Department is preparing a joint demonstration of unmanned ground vehicles called GroundBreaker 1, scheduled for mid-October at Camp Grafton, North Dakota, DefenseScoop reported.

Only members of the DoW Drone OTA Consortium can take part, and vendors submit white papers for consideration. Industry-built robotic ground vehicles will be assessed in realistic field conditions, with service members judging usability and mission effectiveness.

The mission areas on the list are broad: reconnaissance and surveillance, supply and equipment transport, explosive ordnance disposal and route clearance, search and rescue, force protection and perimeter security, casualty evacuation, and multi-domain support. The desired features include autonomous obstacle avoidance, all-terrain mobility and open, hardware-agnostic software that plugs into military networks and command systems.

The open-architecture requirement is worth watching. It signals that the Pentagon wants to mix and match robots and software from different vendors rather than buy closed systems. Vendors that show high tactical value and technical maturity may be invited to submit full proposals for prototyping under Other Transaction Agreements.

Source: DefenseScoop.