Unmanned Systems Technology 023 I Milrem Multiscope I Wireless charging I Logistics insight I InterGeo, CUAV London & USA show reports I VideoRay Defender I OS Engines GR400U-FI I Ultrabeam Hydrographic Ultra-2 I IMUs

31 Milrem Multiscope | Dossier Threod. The comms bearers are secure network radios provided by Silvus, DTC and other partners. Milrem is also working on point-to- point navigation, obstacle avoidance and a ‘follow me’ mode in which it tags along behind a person on foot who is carrying a beacon. “We can provide basic optical obstacle detection now,” says science and technology development director Mart Noorma. “Off-road, the challenge is that you can’t stop at every obstacle. There are years and billions of dollars of development to go until we get to the level of obstacle detection for off-road that is equal to human understanding. The number one challenge is 100% safe human detection so that it wouldn’t even run over a camouflaged soldier. We cannot promise that yet, nobody can.” Milrem’s first priority for autonomy is navigation in GPS-denied environments, says Noorma. This is driven by the Russian military’s well-known ability to jam all kinds of radio signals in an almost surgical manner, and in the civilian sector by the need to operate in areas where GNSS signals won’t penetrate, including urban canyons, inside buildings and under the ground, and that requires a very sophisticated multi-sensor suite. “A complication is that our focus on off- road operations, and off-road navigation is not solved scientifically,” Noorma says. Autonomy, as applied to vehicle mobility, is more difficult to achieve in off-road environments because of the lack of road signs and markings to help the system make decisions. “On the road, if you meet an obstacle you stop. Off-road there are always obstacles,” he says. Each obstacle presents the autonomous system with a decision – whether to stop, go around or through a bush, a swamp or a patch of tall grass that may be concealing rocks. “That already indicates that the sensor system has to be more complex than it would on the road,” Noorma says. “For example, lidars wouldn’t tell you anything about a stone in the grass until it’s too late.” Unmanned Systems Technology | December/January 2019 The Multiscope in cargo configuration. Its rated payload of 750 kg is conservative to allow some margin in case it is overloaded in service (Courtesy of Milrem) Bolting a pair of forklift tines to the Multiscope’s payload platform would free people from logistics operations in hazardous environments (Courtesy of Milrem)