The U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) has awarded Robotic Research a five-year $50 million contract for Autonomous Unmanned Systems Teaming & Collaboration (AUSTC) for the Counter-WMD Mission in challenging subterranean and other environments.

Robotic Research is a Maryland-based engineering and technology company that provides autonomy software and robotic technology to several Federal and commercial customers.
 
AUSTC builds on prior and ongoing Robotic Research Small Business Innovative Research contracts—also with ARDEC—in support of the Mobile Autonomous Counter-WMD System, Increment B (MACS-B). 

The MACS-B program provides several subterranean mission objectives such as mapping and reconnaissance, location and characterization of WMD materials, and autonomous teaming and collaborative operations to include unmanned ground and air vehicles, to name a few.

“It is a great honor to expand our work for the US Army, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and the Special Forces community on the family-of-systems for autonomous collaborative robotic teaming in support of challenging subterranean missions,” says Alberto Lacaze, President of Robotic Research.

“The Robotic Research team shares the Army leadership's commitment to rapidly fielding effective autonomous Counter-WMD solutions for our Nation's warfighters.”

Under the terms of the contract, Robotic Research will conduct AUSTC technical demonstrations of autonomous unmanned systems sensing technologies. The company will also design and develop “new and more advanced autonomous unmanned systems sensing technologies,” among other tasks. 

AUSTC focuses on “improving autonomy, 3D/4D mapping, localization, target ID, tracking, collective 3D visualization, weapons system integration of Unmanned Autonomous Systems, subterranean communications and more.”