Another of several different possible 3D represtentations generated by RIK and displayed on the OCI during the Army test. (See full-size image)
The robot was able to navigate cluttered obstacles while performing various user-defined tasks such as area searches and the de-mining of roads and dismounted lanes. The speed for negotiating obstacles as well as detecting and marking the entire 50-meter lane was dependent on the number of mines found and marked. It varied from 5 minutes for 3 mines marked up to ~6.25 minutes for 6 mines marked. Data collected for humanitarian de-mining efforts in the Bosnia-Herzegovina region indicate a slow and tedious process that typically results in one lane – about 50 to 60 square meters – being cleared each day. When comparing the robot to current military operations, the Maneuver Support Center (MANSCEN) at Ft. Leonard Wood reports that it would take approximately 25 minutes for a trained soldier to complete the task accomplished by the robot, which gives about a four-fold decrease in cycle time without putting a human in harms way.
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