Future Combat Systems Fcs Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle Sugv Teleoperation Experiment Results

As part of the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) transformation effort, the newly redesigned Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV) is required to use a common radio for communication between the SUGV's operator and the FCS network environment. FCS has proposed using the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Soldier-level Integrated Communications Environment (SLICE) radio operating with the Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW) as the SUGV radio solution. In the 2007 Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) On-The-Move experiment, the FCS Network Analysis and Integration Laboratory (NAIL) conducted initial experiments to simulate the teleoperation of a SUGV-class platform using an implementation of this radio system called the Wearable Soldier Radio Terminal (WSRT). Working with NAIL representatives, U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) engineers integrated the WSRT radios onto an ARL-modified PackBot system so that relevant real-world data could be collected. This report examines the integration effort that took place to allow the WSRT to control the ARL PackBot system, including the hardware and software used, and focuses on performance results, comparisons with the existing ARL radio solution, and initial conclusions.