ECA Group recently performed in Paris area several demonstrations of its collaborative concepts of operation composed of Unmanned Aerial & Land Vehicles for stand-off mine clearance.

ECA Group demonstrated its new operational concept for IED/EOD missions consisting in a UAV & UGV collaborating together.

This collaborative concept is aiming at providing intervention teams a better situational awareness and overwatch for executing Explosive Ordonance Disposal (EOD) and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) missions. The complementarity of the UAV IT180 systems comes especially when the visibility from ground platform (UGV) is limited or when the risk is out of the operator's view.

This UAV-UGV system is part of ECA Group research program on robotic systems for the future with important and ambitious themes, such as:

• Simplification of mission management: with the IT180 UAV  proving a direct view of the UGV “as if the operator was close to the UGV” to help complex manipulation for non-direct view intervention
• Improvement of autonomous processes: with autonomous flight of the IT180 UAV  & its automatic camera vision of the IGUANA UGV E – even if the IGUANA UGV is operated thanks to target acquisition mode (also used to follow a mobile target such as a man or a vehicle)
• Navigational accuracy: with the IGUANA UGV helped by the UAV IT180 for obstacle anticipation & optimal path finding (also automatic obstacle clearance with the IGUANA UGV)
• Interaction between robots: with the UAV IT180 proving a radio relay for long range operations (also able to drop a mini-UGV COBRA MK2 I)

The ECA Group is renowned for its expertise in robotics, automated systems, simulation and industrial processes. Since 1936 it has been developing complete innovative technological solutions to perform complex missions in hostile or restrictive environments.