The U.S. Army has concluded an autonomous micro-robotics research project that involved collaboration between the Army Research Laboratory and multiple industry and academic partners over the past 10 years.
The Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology program was completed during a capstone event which featured 17 demonstrations and presentations of ground and air micro-robots, the Army said Monday.
BAE Systems led the MAST collaborative technology alliance and collaborated with NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in efforts to integrate microsystems.
The University of Michigan, University of Maryland and University of Pennsylvania focused on microelectronics, microsystem mechanics and targeted processing for autonomous operations under the project.
“We’re now seeing a wave of commercialization in this space,” said Brian Sadler, Army senior research scientist for intelligent systems.
“I believe this is going to be a tactical offset strategy for the Army — the miniaturization of the robotics, the combination of large and small platforms, what it brings to the networking, what it brings to sensing and the ability to go fast in complex environments,” Sadler added.
Other MAST participants included University of New Mexico, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Texas A&M University, University of California, Merced, University of Delaware, University of Texas, Austin, Kansas State University, University of Colorado, Bolder, Bowie State University and University of California, San Diego.
The Army plans to establish a new collaborative research alliance that will focus on distributed collaborative intelligent systems and technology.
