MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/: Russia’s latest Udar robotic vehicle will be capable of moving on the battlefield autonomously and interacting with drones, Armament Cluster Industrial Director at the state tech corporation Rostec Bekkhan Ozdoyev told TASS on Thursday.
The operational prototype of the Udar robotic system has been developed by the Signal All-Russian Scientific Research Institute within High Precision Systems Company integrated into Rostec.
"When developing the Udar, the enterprise’s specialists tested the possibility of the robot’s movements in the autonomous mode. For this purpose, the vehicle integrates a motion planning subsystem based on sensors and measuring devices. Based on the data received, the robot’s route is formed, taking into account terrain features, and combat assignment parameters can be calculated," he said.
In developing robotic combat vehicles, the Signal Research Institute uses a unified robotics principle that implies outfitting existing models of military hardware with a set of equipment, the press office of High Precision Systems said.
"The Udar robot, for example, has been developed on the basis of the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle. The same principle is used to robotize combat compartments: as of today, six different combat compartments mounted on the vehicle have been robotized," it said.
The Udar robot can also interact with unmanned aerial vehicles, the Rostec executive said.
"We tested inter-operability with drones, including the tethered type with the electric power supply from the robot itself. Such drones can be used for conducting further reconnaissance and relaying the control radio channel," Ozdoyev added.
The robotic vehicle has been tested in inter-operability with lightweight robots designated for conducting reconnaissance, blowing up targets, transporting cargoes and evacuating the wounded.
"A lightweight robot is mounted on or in the rear of the Udar vehicle and has a mechanism of simplified automatic undocking from the carrier before starting the fulfillment of the assigned task," the Signal Research Institute specified.
The Udar robot based on the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle was unveiled at the Russian Defense Ministry’s Innovation Day exhibition in 2015.
