The Armys squad multi-purpose gear transportation program is about to enter a brand-new stage, and will shortly test the services capacity to quickly acquire new platforms. The goal of the SMET job is to field autonomous vehicles which can carry dismounted soldiers equipment and lighten their load. Following testing of business offerings at Fort Benning, Georgia, last autumn, the Army downselected to four sellers: General Dynamics Land Systems, HDT Global, Howe along with Howe Technologies, along with a Polaris ARA Neya Systems team. Once Congress passed a final defense appropriations bill of fiscal year 2018 that was expected to occur before that the end of March that the Army plans to award contracts for every seller to construct 20 prototypes.
The programs will then be put through their paces by soldiers during the next season or so at Fort Drum, NY, and Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Maj. John George, director for force development, Army G-8, told colleagues in that the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in National Harbor, Maryland. The service intends to utilize other trade authority given by Congress to move from prototyping to a Milestone C decision along with go down to one vendor in around 15 months, he said. That's significantly quicker than we've been able to do previous efforts. Inspired by the slow speed of Pentagon procurement, lawmakers have passed laws aimed toward cutting bureaucratic red tape.
Provisions within the last three defense authorization bills change that the military to try to to these varieties of example competitions victimization versatile authorities like different trade authority arrangements, and after
that potentially go directly to follow-on production without further competition, explained Andrew Hunter, director of that the Defense Industrial Initiatives Group at that the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This looks like an intriguing case study in the way the military service may use these authorities to significantly expedite an acquisition process, he explained of the SMET program. The Army wants to purchase as much as 5, 700 robotic mules for brigade combat teams dependant upon their price tag and financing availability, George said.
Service officials want that the vehicles to be capable to haul 1, 000 pounds of equipment, travel 60 miles off road in 3 days or less, generate 3 kilowatts of power stationary along with 1 kw moving, and cost about $100, 000 or less. A typical program of this sort would take more than 10 years, George noted, but that the Army needs to go faster. If we do not change that the way we acquire and field equipment to our formations, we'll be fielding obsolete equipment. A ground vehicle program would be a logical place for that the Defense Department to use its new acquisition government, Hunter said. The systems are less complicated than other types of programs like fighter airplane, he noted. In all probability theres not going to be a substantial amount of development required on these vehicles, he said.

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