Matej

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The Ripsaw Unmanned Ground Vehicle. Military prototype and privately funded DARPA challenger. Super fast (0–50 in 3.5 secs), manoeuvrable, tough. Emergency services, military escort, bomb disposal. Built by the Howe Brothers. $200,000.00 each.

http://www.howeandhowe.com/
 

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There's a write up in this German language hobby magazine with the video of a model by one of those accomplished german hobbyist;

http://www.rad-und-kette.de/inhalt/inhaltaktuell.html
http://www.rad-und-kette.de/inhalt/inhalt209.html
http://www.rad-und-kette.de/inhalt/inhalt309.html

I'm looking for a used copy of it as a new one cost upwards of 12 Euros. I hope some of our German members know of a good online shop that deals with used periodicals and magazines.
 
Outstanding! We already have unmanned aircraft in service, and others in the prototype stage, including unmanned bombers, helicopters; we have prototype unmanned robot combatants; we now have prototype unmanned tanks, each with various degrees of autonomous operation.

All we need now is an intricate satellite system called Skynet to link 'em all up, and we're ready to go ;D
 
The British Skynet family of satellites have been active for some years -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(satellites)

You really need some humanoid military robots too, but luckily those are on the way too -

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/army-terminators-walk-like-a-man/
 
Sorry for replying to a rather outdated thread again but it just struck me that the suspension system employed on the Ripsaw seems to be based on suspension employed on snowmobiles and a throwback to Christie styled suspension. Would like to hear from forum members on this and other aspects of vehicular design employed on the vehicle.

By the way, the Howe brothers now offer a personal version of the Ripsaw,

http://www.howeandhowetechnologies.com/minirip.php

which looks like a quad bike/ATV on tracks and they also have a show on the Discovery Channel called Howe & Howe Tech.
 
From the article:
In January, the Army announced its intention to award other transaction authority agreements to QinetiQ North America and Textron Systems to build four light and four medium prototype RCVs, respectively. The companies won a competitive downselect.


QinetiQ will be leading the systems integration work with a modified Expeditionary Modular Autonomous Vehicle, or EMAV, developed by its partner
Pratt Miller.


“We’re going to be providing the vehicle and the hardware and a lot of the underlying software that makes that vehicle tick, but the top-level autonomy is government-owned autonomy software that they will continue to develop and refine,” said Jon Hastie, QinetiQ North America’s director of unmanned systems products. “This is a modular system with an open systems architecture that they can continue to layer new technologies and new capabilities on top of.”


The EMAV can reach speeds over 30 mph, weighs 7,000 pounds and can carry 7,000 pounds of payload.


A platform built from the ground-up as a robotic system provides design advantages over manned platforms that have been converted to unmanned systems, he said.


“If you look at the EMAV, it’s a flat deck vehicle, which means we can strap anything to it pretty easily,” Hastie said. “We can put whatever we want on it, so it’s providing that modularity.”


The platform has extensive power offload capability because it is a diesel-electric hybrid. It can power equipment such as radios, radars, computers, or even potentially directed energy weapons, he noted. Additionally, it can operate in a run-silent mode using the battery pack for reduced noise signature, he said, while offering increased run time and better efficiency.


Textron’s Ripsaw M5 RCV-medium can reach speeds of 40-plus mph, has a combat weight of 10.5 tons and a payload capacity of 8,000 pounds.


It will also have diesel-electric drive and be equipped with sensors developed by partner FLIR Systems that will provide 360-degree situational awareness. FLIR’s SkyRaider unmanned aerial system can also be deployed from the vehicle tethered or untethered, said Sean Baity, director of engineering at Textron.


“It allows the persistence and the resilience of a tethered platform, but also the ability to allow that UAS to expand the reach and coverage available to the remote RCV operator,” he said.


A FLIR-developed small unmanned ground vehicle can also be deployed from the Ripsaw, he noted.


“There’s tremendous opportunity in terms of how do you effectively deploy robots within a maneuver force,” Baity said. “We really have provided a solution, M5, built around the idea of flexibility, modularity — because we know that the mission and the best effective way to use this platform is not only yet to be formed and really codified or established within the Army, but it also has so much potential in such a wide range of applications.”


The M5 is the fifth-generation version of the Ripsaw, which was developed by Howe & Howe Technologies. Textron acquired the company last year.


“It will really be that Swiss army knife of future combat vehicles where … the vehicle can be changed or modified” for any mission, said Howe & Howe Senior Vice President Mike Howe.


During the phase 2 experiment, the light and medium RCVs will be involved in company-level offensive and defensive operations that are more complex than reconnaissance, Wallace said.


The insights gleaned can be applied to higher level units, he noted.


“We can’t take the lessons we learned from a platoon-level exercise and then scale it to a brigade level, but we certainly can do that with a company,” he said.


The service will try to conduct a hasty breach using robotic assets, and also employ a remotely operated chemical detection package.
 
Rapid_Robotic_Requirement_Relayjpg.jpg

ORIGINAL CAPTION: The Ripsaw M5 is a robotic combat vehicle (RCV) developed by Textron Systems and Howe & Howe Technologies Inc. This platform features an optionally tethered unmanned aerial system, a 30mm chain gun and a marsupial robot. It will serve as the Phase II RCV (Medium) surrogate (Picture source:courtesy of Textron Systems)

 

Though I'm looking at this thing and it hits me that putting a gun mortar, like the Nona, on it and use it as a direct fire assault gun is a quick way for this UGVs of this weight class to become useful.

Putting autocannons on it and use it to fight fast paced vehicle combat or against hit and run infantry really stress communications and/or AI, and while demanding pretty expensive sensors and stabilization. Giving it a big HE gun to attack fixed structures and terrain features on the other hand can be planned out extensively with those problems dealt with cheap sensors, comms and no AI. Structures in urban terrain is often obstructed from artillery fires and manned vehicles have to face RPG and IED threats at short range that is difficult to defend against.

Another weapon that'd fit a drone would be flamethrowers, but it really is more of a morale weapon that fit certain regime types.
 
Looks like the Ripsaw designer have now grown up a bit. Still looks too pretty to send into war. How much of the development money has gone into actual real world military design/use compared to how it looks. If you look at the German ww2 Goliath, that looks great and does exactly what it needed to do without makeup on.
 

Though I'm looking at this thing and it hits me that putting a gun mortar, like the Nona, on it and use it as a direct fire assault gun is a quick way for this UGVs of this weight class to become useful.

Putting autocannons on it and use it to fight fast paced vehicle combat or against hit and run infantry really stress communications and/or AI, and while demanding pretty expensive sensors and stabilization. Giving it a big HE gun to attack fixed structures and terrain features on the other hand can be planned out extensively with those problems dealt with cheap sensors, comms and no AI. Structures in urban terrain is often obstructed from artillery fires and manned vehicles have to face RPG and IED threats at short range that is difficult to defend against.

Another weapon that'd fit a drone would be flamethrowers, but it really is more of a morale weapon that fit certain regime types.
Fast agile is maintained w/ an autocannon..the issue is can it defeat BMP-3 like hvy armor.

A unmanned 113 makes sense for in/direct mortars. Maybe a 81mm equipped veh is bit more expendable/useable back from the frontline.

Flamethrowers are not a thing in the West.. Yes, the west does/can revert back to... but they are generally avoided.
 

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