ROBODEXS; Multi-robot Deployment & Extraction System

The importance of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV's) in the Military's operations is continually increasing. All Military branches now rely on advanced robotic technologies to aid in their missions' operations. The integration of these technologies has not only enhanced capabilities, but has increased personnel safety by generating larger standoff distances. Currently most UGV's are deployed by an exposed dismounted Warfighter because the Military possess a limited capability to do so remotely and can only deploy a single UGV. This paper explains the conceptual development of a novel approach to remotely deploy and extract multiple robots from a single host platform. The Robotic Deployment & Extraction System (ROBODEXS) is a result of our development research to improve marsupial robotic deployment at safe standoff distances. The presented solution is modular and scalable, having the ability to deploy anywhere from two to twenty robots from a single deployment mechanism For larger carrier platforms, multiple sets of ROBODEXS modules may be integrated for deployment and extraction of even greater numbers of robots. Such a system allows mass deployment and extraction from a single manned/unmanned vehicle, which is not currently possible with other deployment systems.