NCMS Project #: 142271
Problem: The maintenance and sustainment of a new integrated autonomous system made of disparate hardware and software components is usually an afterthought. The best modification design solutions consider how a full vehicle or system’s reliability will be impacted by a modification or new component installation and how the change may affect the maintenance and sustainment of the host platform. For the Department of Defense (DOD), the integration of unique autonomy technologies onto legacy systems provides similar challenges which advanced commercial technologies and best digital engineering and integration practices can help solve.
Benefit: Regardless of the industry, designing and developing modular robotics systems and components that are more reliable, easier to repair, and cheaper to maintain and upgrade will continue to be the preferred approach for consumers and commercial users.
Solution/Approach: Phase II will build upon the lessons learned from the initial phase to assess the safety of robotic systems and control vehicle surrogate prototypes in a major prototype demonstration and determine improved safety analysis and assessment tools and methods to identify safety functional hazards that impact systems availability, reliability, and maintainability.
Impact on Warfighter:
- Increase warfighter flexibility and agility
- Reduce time to integrate new hardware/software capabilities
- Decrease labor and fuel costs
- Improve warfighter safety
DOD Participation:
- U.S. Army Project Manager, Future Battle Platforms
- U.S. Army Product Manager, Robotic Combat Vehicle
- U.S. Army DEVCOM, Ground Vehicle System Center
- U.S. Army Forces Command
Industry Participation:
- Ricardo Defense
- NCMS
Benefit Area(s):
- Cost savings
- Repair turnaround time
- Mx avoidance & reliability
- Safety
- Reliability improvement
Mx Focus Area:
- Reliability Improvement (Hardware)
