The German company has since given Armada a live demonstration of the system’s capabilities. The Systronic is a bit like a Russian doll: the Wiesel 2 carries a lightweight, four-propeller drone called the Air Vehicle on its bonnet and a small ‘garage’ attached to the back, on the right of the rear access door. A small lift enables the remotely controlled land robot called the “Telemax” to descend to the ground, unfold its tracks and be on its way. Controlling the Telemax and monitoring what it sees is performed from within the armoured vehicle. However, should the Telemax run into trouble, and the Air Vehicle be impossible to operate for one reason or another, the two-man crew can dismount and remotely control it around the corner of the street to see what is happening, the Wiesel also being equipped with three nose-mounted cameras and a rear mastmounted
camera.
iRobot’s Packbot series
The smallest platform in the US Army’s Future Combat System family will be the man-portable Small
Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV) capable of operating in urban terrain tunnels, sewers and caves to conduct reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition missions. The vehicle is being developing by iRobot under a $ 51.4 million contract. It will be a smaller, lighter successor to iRobot’s Packbot series, consisting of the Explorer, Scout and EOD models. More than 850 have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are an important component of the Future Combat System programme.
The target weight for the SUGV is less than 13.6 kg, half the weight of the Packbot, with a modular ‘plug-and-play’ payload of up to 2.72 kg. It is intended to have an endurance of six hours and operate reliably up to 1000 metres from the operator above ground and up to 200 metres away in tunnels. Under present plans the army would like to field the SUGV as part to the second ‘spinout’ to the present force in 2012, four years before the first FCS brigade combat team is due to be formed.
The US Army Research Laboratory is evaluating the maturity of the design to determine if it can be brought forward to the first spinout in 2008 so that it can be used for missions in buildings, caves and other confined spaces.The primary factor that will influence this decision, which could be made as soon as midyear,
is whether semi-autonomous navigation can be programmed into the SUGV. Engineers are optimistic that,
given the comparatively short range over which the SUGV is expected to operate, this can be achieved.
Rheinmetall’s Systronic Demonstrator Wiesel 2 Digital (left) is currently being developed as a demonstrator. Remotely controllable itself, this Wiesel 2 lowers a small remote control tracked vehicle to the ground.
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