52 IDV Robotics (IDV-R) is a company at the veritable heart of the UK’s UGV development pipeline for defence applications. Formerly part of Horiba MIRA (a UK-based automotive engineering, test and development consultancy), IDV-R has been innovating UGV technologies for over 15 years, much of which has involved working with the UK MoD in pursuit of robust UGV operations in harsh environments. Today, under new ownership with Iveco Defence Vehicles (IDV), the company is expanding its reach into Europe and beyond. It was in 2008 that the organisation first stepped onto the stage of uncrewed systems by entering a UK MoD grand challenge with a prototype robotic platform on an autonomous mapping and threat-detection course at Copehill Down, the MoD’s urban warfare training facility. Inspired by successes there, the team’s ongoing development culminated in the Viking, an all-terrain, multirole, six-wheeled diesel-electric hybrid UGV. “Armies around the world increasingly want first enemy contact to be with a robot, rather than a soldier, or they need machines to perform mission-critical tasks in contested environments,” says Dr Geoff Davis, managing director of IDV-R. To tackle such evolving tasks and environments, Viking is built for a variety of defence applications, including ISTAR, casualty evacuation (CASEVAC), logistics resupply, CRBNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive) reconnaissance and survey, and remote weapon-station combat roles. As an offroad military UGV, the Viking has a gross vehicle weight of 2 t, measures 3 m x 1.8 m x 0.9 m, and can carry up to 750 kg of payload mass (with a payload mounting area of 2.2 m x 1.8 m available atop the vehicle). While this vehicle originated under Horiba MIRA, the technology and team behind it was recently acquired by IDV, based in Bolzano, Italy; now IDV-R, it continues to develop and manufacture the Viking UGV and uncrewed technologies in the UK. Viking ancestry The first real-world application of the team’s UGV engineering was as a convoy protection system in Afghanistan, where the constant threat of roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) merited an uncrewed autonomous vehicle Rory Jackson finds out what the UK’s sole domestic supplier of military UGV tech is working on June/July 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The IDV Robotics Viking is built for defence applications, including ISTAR, casualty evacuation, logistics resupply and CRBNE survey (Images courtesy of IDV-R) Viking defenders
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