Taming the 'Wildcat'

01 Mar 2007

BAE Systems has just demonstrated its first, fully autonomous ground vehicle: a converted Bowler 'Wildcat' offroader.

In just six months, the ATC took a commercially available 4x4 vehicle and equipped it with the ability to drive and think for itself. This achievement is an important technological step forward and is a boost to the company's aspiration to attain autonomous capability for defence platforms in line with the Government's new Defence Industrial Strategy.

Early in 2006, BAE Systems Strategic Business Group tasked the ATC to equip and demonstrate the operation of an autonomous ground vehicle. With a dedicated team based in the Warwickshire countryside, the ATC achieved just that. It transformed a 'Wildcat' production car from the Bowler company into an autonomous vehicle, that can not only follow planned routes at speeds of up to 40 mph, but can also sense and avoid obstacles in its path - all without the need of a driver.

The car was fitted with computer controlled steering servos, an extra braking system and a hotline into the vehicle's engine management system for speed control. In addition, wireless data links, GPS and laser ranging sensors were installed so that the Wildcat could receive instructions, navigate and avoid hitting obstacles. But the real key to the vehicle's success is the multi-level approach to autonomous operation devised by the team and developed by them into a working system.

"The Wildcat's got four levels of autonomy," says John Puddy, autonomy expert at the ATC. "It works by organising its operation using a top level 'planner' which has the big picture of the mission right down to the 'driver' that takes care of the basic task of controlling the vehicle." he says.

The whole process is initiated from a simple 'point and click' screen linked to the Wildcat by radio from a mobile command centre in the back of a Land Rover. Once given its marching orders, the Wildcat does the rest.

To help them in this task, the ATC assembled a task force of suppliers and partners to achieve the ambitious programme in the most cost-effective and timely way. So far, the vehicle has clocked up over 300 autonomous miles at the Motor Industry Research Association's test facility near Nuneaton. This test facility has over 50 miles of surfaced and rough tracks. Last Autumn, in a series of demonstrations, the vehicle showed repeatedly its ability to follow specified routes and avoid a series of changing obstacles, representing people, placed in its path between laps.

The potential of autonomous systems like the Wildcat is rapidly gaining recognition by military planners. By using the same approach taken in this project, existing vehicles could be adapted for autonomous operation in conflict zones, keeping service personnel out of danger.

Defence chiefs are keen to advance this capability and in the US for example, Congress mandated that "It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that... by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles are unmanned*." Autonomy is also an important element in the MoD's Defence Industrial Strategy which sets a framework for UK defence capability deep into the 21st Century. The BAE Systems team are set to bound ahead in the autonomy stakes in the coming year by operating multiple, autonomous vehicles in a co-operative and interactive mode. The setting will simulate complex scenarios such as urban environments where even GPS signals are unavailable. This will lead to an early demonstration of state of the art capabilities demonstrated in other programmes such as much publicised DARPA 'Grand Challenge' that recently staged a race between autonomous, rough terrain vehicles across a desert course in California.

Other Wildcat partners were: Bowler Ltd., Motor Industry Research Association, Oxford Technical Solutions Ltd., ACAL Ltd., QNX Ltd., M.J.Fews Ltd, The Mathworks Ltd. *From US National Defense Authorization, Fiscal Year 2001, Public Law 106 – 398, Sec. 220