CART Joins Team Scorpion for the Robotics Rodeo

FORT HOOD, Texas--The Center for Applied Research and Technology (CART, Inc.) at Bluefield State College (BSC) joined Preferred Chassis of Tucson, Arizona, soldiers and other civilian contractors at Fort Hood Texas for the recent inaugural Robotics Rodeo.  The event allowed the team to review and interact with a large group of robot systems contractors and to demonstrate how an autonomous Scorpion 4x4 might potentially find a place in the U.S. Army's robotic vehicle lineup.

“Obviously, soldiers do the fighting on the ground, and even with the support of the most intelligent machines, it's going to stay that way,” noted CART CEO Bruce Mutter. ”Still, there is growing need for robots to take over dirty, dull, and dangerous jobs that might free soldiers for other duty, enable a smaller force, or more importantly, help isolate soldiers from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).” In 2001, the Senate defense authorization bill mandated that "one third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the armed forces will be unmanned by 2015."

"The enemy often places IEDs in the same locations that he has used in the past. A robotic system that can observe these locations for a prolonged period of time and alert us of a significant change would be of great value," Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, Fort Hood commander and co-host of the Robotics Rodeo, said.  "There are hundreds of other robotic concepts that could also be useful to our Army and this Robotics Rodeo will showcase some of those--it's a great educational opportunity."

The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) invited more than 40 vendors to demonstrate their robotic capabilities.

The opportunity to take toughness and technology to another level has served as the foundation for partnership of a pair of entities with seemingly different backgrounds. CART at BSC and Dwaine Jungen, the president of Preferred Chassis Fabrication have combined their talent for innovation with a common goal—developing an autonomous (unmanned) robotic vehicle on a rugged, versatile chassis with the technology to react appropriately to the environmental and terrain challenges encountered in military operations. 

Mutter met Jungen at a DARPA Grand Challenge participants’ conference several years ago in Anaheim, CA.  There, they compared strategies for negotiating an obstacle-strewn desert course and general philosophies regarding vehicle control.  “I had been chasing DARPA for more than a year,” noted Jungen, who has been featured on the syndicated television program “Monster Garage.” “The philosophy of the teams in the 2004 competition didn’t put much emphasis on the platform.”

“When I met Bruce, I found that our approaches were very similar,” Jungen continued. The platform is, in many ways, just as important as the control system, he said. “The platform absorbs and adapts to a wide variety of terrain and environmental challenges. It doesn’t matter how smart the technology onboard the vehicle is, if the vehicle is stopped by the terrain.” Working together over the past five years, Preferred Chassis built the Team Scorpion chassis to respond to CART’s autonomous control software. When we unveiled the `Scorpion-fox’ a few years ago,” Jungen proclaimed, “We had a purpose-built vehicle that was designed specifically for autonomous operation.”

Jungen and Mutter see the considerable mutual benefit from their collaborative approach.  “CART has found a partner so its autonomous technologies can be demonstrated onboard, and in turn, I’ve found a partner to help showcase our engineering and fabrication abilities,” Jungen stated.

Preferred Chassis Fabrication, Inc. builds performance vehicles for street and off-road enthusiasts, construction and utility firms, racing, and rock climbing and creates custom fabrications including tube chassis, custom inverters, and Scorpion MK Series 4x4s.  Petersen’s 4Wheel & Off-Road featured the Scorpion MK I as the best “true multi-functional” 4x4 ever. 

CART, Inc. brings ingenuity to industry and fulfills this mission by producing outstanding results through applied research.  The focus is on innovation, transferring technologies to self-sustaining markets, creating and deploying technology systems and services that become proven examples of CART’s reliability as a business partner to industry.  

CART projects include working with Fenner Dunlop Americas (F-D) to develop a steel-cord conveyor belt design software tool and supporting F-D with its Applied Research Assistantship Program.  The company also works with SAIC, Kroger (Bluefield Beverage), Cliffs Natural Resources, Textron-RE2 (Pittsburgh, PA) and the Rahall Transportation Institute at Marshall University on applied research, advanced vehicles, technology training, web 2.0 applications, and other technology development projects. 

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