Phase II year
2019
(last award dollars: 2023)
Phase II Amount
$3,460,000
Munitions loading is a critical element of Air Wing Operations. However, as airframes and weapons evolve, it becomes ever more difficult to adapt the rudimentary lifting technology of existing loaders to modern positioning demands. "Our legacy lift equipment is no longer an effective agile solution creating a mission support gap affecting combat lethality and readiness for adaptive basing." A family of compact, rugged, highly versatile systems capable of supporting current and planned weapons systems is proposed. A Material Handling Unit-Tri-Sphere (MHU-TS) is a high-payload robotic handling system capable of performing munitions tasks with unprecedented speed and precision. The use of flexible robotics allows a single handling system to accommodate a wide array of weapon geometries and to maneuver these weapons within the space constraints imposed by a variety of airframes. The MHU-TS is predicated upon an innovative robotic manipulator uniquely well suited to these ordinance handling tasks. This Tri-Sphere Robot possesses six degrees-of-freedom, has a generous work envelope and payload capacity in excess of 18,000 lb. Phase I conclusively demonstrate the effectiveness of the Tri-Sphere technology for munitions loading tasks and developed a road-map for introduction of the MHU-TS into service.
