The Marine Corps is testing a robotic version of its micro-truck, the Internally Transportable Vehicle (ITV), that can autonomously drive itself across rough terrain to carry supplies and ammunition for Marines in the field and evacuate the wounded. Called the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate, or GUSS, the vehicle was developed in a collaboration between the US Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Virginia Tech University, and TORC Robotics.
As part of the ongoing Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) international naval exercise, the Marine Corps tested GUSS on Oahu at the US Army’s Kahuku Training Area. The vehicle can follow someone wearing a beacon at a predetermined distance or be dispatched to a waypoint by remote control. If it gets stuck, a human can either use a robotic controller to take direct control of the vehicle or jump into its driver’s seat and throw a switch to take control. According to a report from Fox, the Naval Surface Warfare Center and Marine Corps both rated the vehicle’s performance as good, particularly in simulations of casualty evacuations, as demonstrated in the following video:
This isn’t the GUSS system’s first RIMPAC appearance. A different version of the system, based on a six-wheeled off-road vehicle, was tested during the 2010 RIMPAC exercise. GUSS and the ITV it is based on are small enough to be carried on a Marine Corps Chinook helicopter or Osprey tilt-rotor. More development work is required on the GUSS robotics system, which could be used on other vehicle “platforms,” but the Navy and Marine Corps believe that a version of it could be deployed within the next five years.