Reducing the Burden - Assisted Carriage

RED, with partners Boeing UK, John Deere, Roke Manor and NP Aerospace won the Capability Vision Reducing the Burden of the Dismounted Soldier- Task 4:Assisted Carriage project competition. The aim of this project was to create an all-terrain autonomous vehicle to assist dismounted soldiers as a technology demonstrator.

The modern infantry soldier is now extremely well equipped and protected. However, this means that, when on foot patrol, individual soldiers are regularly carrying in excess of 50 kilograms of kit each. This level of weight can significantly impact the tempo of operations that these dismounted infantry are able to undertake.

This 17 month Technology Demonstrator project was therefore aimed at designing an autonomous vehicle for assisting the dismounted soldier across all terrain types. The Assisted Carriage System (ACS) will be capable of offloading between 25 and 40 kilograms of equipment from each individual soldier and will also provide capacity to carry additional cargo, increasing effectiveness. The vehicle will operate autonomously, but could also be driven and reconfigured to meet a multitude of ground-support needs.

The successful design concept exploits the significant research and development into autonomous vehicles John Deere has conducted for the commercial/agricultural market by taking a base platform and developing it into a fully militarised autonomous vehicle tailored to meet UK requirements. The vehicle will integrate various systems that will enable full mission autonomy, give flexible mission capabilities and which are able to operate and survive in both current and future environments that soldiers may find themselves in.