AFRL Taps BAE Systems, Sarcos Defense to Build Advanced Perception, Sensing Platform

BAE Systems and Sarcos Defense, a subsidiary of Sarcos Robotics, has entered into a partnership agreement to develop advanced perception and sensing capabilities in support of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s autonomous platforms, which are used in various operations conducted by the Department of Defense.

Sarcos and BAE Systems Fast Labs recently received an AFRL contract worth $1.7 million for the effort.

The sensing platform will be designed to address issues involving the coordination of individual and multiple cooperating heterogeneous autonomous systems, including unmanned aircraft systems and unmanned ground vehicles that feature multi-modal sensors, such as radar, cameras and lidar technologies, Sarcos Robotics said.

The AFRL expects to have a system capable of coalescing multiple environmental inputs and enable unmanned systems to work together in swarm scenarios by employing artificial intelligence as well as machine learning technologies.

The resulting platform will deliver “better situational awareness and safety,” including detection, tracking and classification of time-critical objects in unstructured environments, Sarcos explained.

In a statement, Denis Garagic, Sarcos’ chief scientist for advanced systems and AI, said that the company’s collaboration with BAE Systems represents an opportunity that will lead to the development of a solution to enable the U.S. military to operate autonomous platforms with “greater speed and efficacy.”

“This project has wide-reaching implications, enabling safer and much more accurate deployments of autonomous platforms while improving data quality and overall operational efficiency,” Garagic said.

Work on the contract is expected to culminate in 2023 with a demonstration of the sensing platform.