The Israeli Unmanned Ground Vehicle

摘要

The Future Combat System (FCS) program will make it possible to transform the army into a Future Force by replacing existing heavy armor with a lightweight and rapidly responsive family-of-systems that integrates robotic platforms. The goal of the FCS program is that by the year 2025, one third of all military sea, ground, and air systems will be unmanned. Modern armies are likely to undergo similar transformations and use robots in their Future Forces. This is the vision for the future Army. However, it is not only a vision, as combat robots are already in use in the worldwide war against terror. This war, fought in the last decade, has created a new type of conflict, classified as "Asymmetric Warfare", in which the weaker party, the group carrying out guerrilla warfare, manages to create an asymmetrical death toll in combat, to the regular army. In order to minimize casualties, regular armies must use long-range controlled or automatic/autonomic platforms - robotic platforms. With these developments and the growing demand for robotic systems in modern warfare, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) entered the field of Unmanned Ground Vehicles. Several years ago, IAI developed its Israeli Robotic Surveillance and Reconnaissance Vehicle, named GUARDIUM. This document describes the GUARDIUM development program and its operational principles. To the best of our knowledge, the GUARDIUM is the first Robotic Border Patrol system in operational deployment.