DISMOUNTED SOLDIER AUTONOMY TOOLS (DSAT) – FROM CONCEPTION TO DEPLOYMENT

The Dismounted Soldier Autonomy Tools (DSAT) program is the result of the evolution and reuse of work from multiple industry Internal Research & Development (IR&D) programs, as well as work stemming from various multi-service investments made over the past several years. The DSAT program is a direct offshoot of MARTI (Mobile Autonomous Robotics Technology Initiative) - a 5 year IR&D program at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) from 2006-2011 that created a foundation for autonomy and on road capability. The MARTI work was subsequently leveraged into the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Code 30 SUMET (Small Unit Mobility Enhancement Technologies) program starting in 2009. The DSAT program builds off of these SwRI efforts, as well as previous work by TARDEC and DCS Corp in the areas of vehicle architectures and warrior-machine interfaces to build a consolidated, coordinated program. Working together, the team has made several improvements to the collective code base, resulting in new capabilities and increased modularity for new development. Through this Government/Industry collaboration, the DSAT program is able to maximize multi-service DoD spending by leveraging these previous investments and sharing technologies and capabilities among the ongoing TARDEC and ONR Code 30 multi-team development activities..