Demo III: reconnaissance, surveilance, and target acquisition (RSTA) preliminary design

One of the principal roles of the Demo III Experimental Unmanned Ground Vehicle (XUV) will be as a forward scout performing Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) operations. This paper will present the elements of the preliminary design process for satisfying the rigorous Demo III ATR requirements, including military vehicle detectability at a maximum range of 6 km and dismounted soldier detection at 2km. The constituent design issues include sensor selection, sensor suite mounting and stabilization, processing architecture, and algorithm selection. In the context of this selection and design process the lessons learned from previous Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) RSTA efforts will be introduced and the contractual and subsystem derived requirements will be presented as well as the interface issues for the RSTA subsystem in conjunction with the navigation, mission execution, and communication subsystems.