Unmanned Systems Technology 026 I Tecdron TC800-FF I Propellers I USVs I AUVSI 2019 part 1 I Robby Moto UAVE I Singular Aircraft FlyOx I Teledyne SeaRaptor I Simulation & Testing I Ocean Business 2019 report

20 In conversation | Tom Frost lessons to be learned, particularly about running repairs and improvisation, even cannibalising equipment left over from the Russian occupation. “We had four robots over there and it was my job to keep them running,” he says. “It was also my job to improvise additional accessories that we thought the mission needed. We were finding discarded Russian equipment lying around the base that we pillaged for components.” One breakdown forced Frost to call Burlington for help. “I sent an email back to my team that effectively said, ‘Look, I’m the only one here. The robot is down. These are all the issues. All I have is a DeWalt drill and these tools, what do I do?’ “And they sent back an email that said, ‘You know that DeWalt drill? Take it apart. Take resistor 80 off the circuit board and take this component off that and solder these in so you can keep the robot running.’ It was a very Apollo 13 moment.” Frost returned from that summer in Afghanistan with a new appreciation for what the military does and what soldiers and their equipment have to endure. These days he is based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where his responsibilities leave little time for hands-on engineering, he admits. “I have a glass wall here in my office, and all day long I can see the robots zipping by, autonomously navigating through our building as the guys are checking out the new designs,” he says. Layered autonomy Layering in additional levels of autonomy is one of the most exciting things his team is working on at the moment, he says, as it gives them an advanced simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) capability, for example. SLAM has long been held back by the size and cost of the sensors, and of the computers required to process their data and run the algorithms, he adds. “Now we are doing that with sensors that are tightly integrated into the robot; they are part of the rugged chassis. We are doing it with the computer built into the robot, and we are doing it at a price that is affordable.” Another strand of development he points to is bringing UGVs and UAVs together, linking them through a common command and control system so that they can combine more effectively. A more immediate matter is a major US Army programme called the Common Robotic System Heavy (CRS-H), for which FLIR is taking part in the second competitive ‘fly-off’ with a design based on the company’s Kobra reconnaissance platform. Primarily an explosive ordnance disposal robot, the CRS-H must be able to neutralise vehicle-borne IEDs, meaning it must be powerful enough to break into a car but light and compact enough to be easily transportable, and manoeuvrable enough to navigate tight spaces in buildings and climb stairs, for example. FLIR’s Kobra-based solution weighs about 500 lb and fits into the back of an SUV. Frost expects to learn whether they have won the tender sometime in the early summer, and much will depend on how well he and his team have followed the philosophy of engineering that he developed in the light of his experience in Afghanistan: “It’s not enough to just to solve the problem, you’ve got to make it easy to use, and you’ve got to make it rugged and reliable for the real world.” June/July 2019 | Unmanned Systems Technology Tom Frost is the general manager of FLIR Systems’ unmanned ground systems group. He began his education at Hereford High School in Maryland, then went on to Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer engineering with a focus on robotics, followed by an MBA from MIT. He joined iRobot in 1998, where he held a number of key positions including software developer, project manager for the DARPA project that developed the PackBot, director of engineering for government and industrial robots, PackBot programme manager, unmanned maritime systems programme manager, vice-president of strategy, and general manager of the defence and security unit. He remained at iRobot until 2016, when the military business was separated out as Endeavor Robotics, where he served as president before it was bought by FLIR Systems earlier this year. He now reports to Roger Wells, who heads FLIR Systems’ unmanned systems and integrated solutions division. Seven people report directly to him, and together they manage about 140 people. In the early days of the Afghanistan War, Frost spent six weeks in-theatre with the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, pioneering the military’s use of ground robotics in a combat environment and better understanding the military’s needs. He serves on the National Advanced Mobility Consortium’s Board of Directors as a senior robotics executive, where he addresses the opportunities and challenges facing robotic technology developers. Tom Frost