(4) Autonomous Retrieval and Delivery

Over the past decade, commercial industry has begun to integrate flexible robotic material handling solutions to improve the efficiency and reliability of operations. This has been particularly true for manufacturing facilities and warehouses, which have begun to integrate a wide range of autonomous vehicles for retrieving and moving supplies as well as robotic manipulators for retrieving components. However, military sustainment depots have not yet integrated these emerging technologies, which would enable support personnel to spend more time sustaining vehicle platforms and less time simply retrieving parts and supplies needed for the process. Cybernet has been working with both commercial and military customers to develop autonomous vehicle and material handling solutions to enable exactly these operations. We propose to leverage this past work to develop an autonomous supply retrieval process for use at U.S. military depots, warehouses, and supply points. Specifically, we propose to create an autonomous forklift to retrieve palletized supplies and an autonomous electric tug to carry supplies from the point of storage to the point of use. We will further expand this concept in Phase II to include an integrated system to retrieve individual components for delivery.