Automatic Payload Deployment System

Abstract

The ability to precisely emplace stand-alone payloads in hostile territory has long been on the wish list of US warfighters. This type of activity is one of the main functions of special operation forces, often conducted at great danger. Such risk can be mitigated by transitioning the manual placement of payloads over to an automated placement mechanism by the use of the Automatic Payload Deployment System (APDS). Based on the Automatically Deployed Communication Relays (ADCR) system, which provides non-line-of-sight operation for unmanned ground vehicles by automatically dropping radio relays when needed, the APDS takes this concept a step further and allows for the delivery of a mixed variety of payloads. For example, payloads equipped with a camera and gas sensor in addition to a radio repeater, can be deployed in support of rescue operations of trapped miners. Battlefield applications may include delivering food, ammunition, and medical supplies to the warfighter. Covert operations may require the unmanned emplacement of a network of sensors for human-presence detection, before undertaking the mission. The APDS is well suited for these tasks. Demonstrations have been conducted using an iRobot PackBot EOD in delivering a variety of payloads, for which the performance and results will be discussed in this paper.

Drive Through Robotics: Robotic Automation for Last Mile Distribution of Food and Essentials During Pandemics

“…We also discarded 20 studies in domains unrelated to food, such as, robotic surgery, space exploration, nano-robots for drug delivery, use of robots in drug discovery, wireless sensor networks, and, MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems). From the remaining 23 articles, we further eliminated those that were in the fields of agriculture and farming [20], food delivery using nano-particles [22], ingestible nano-robots for diagnosis [23], battlefield operations [24], and, feature descriptions of specific industrial robot models [21]. This yielded a reduced set of 18 articles.…”

Evolution of a Radio Communication Relay System

“…While demonstrating the ADCR system to the US Marine Corps I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), the SSC Pacific team received numerous suggestions on other payloads that could be delivered by the ADCR Deployer Module. These suggestions led to the development of APDS in FY09-10, 4 also funded by the JGRE. In order to support as many different types of payloads as possible, APDS nodes employed a very modular design.…”