Advanced unmanned vehicle technology offers important opportunities to minimize the human factor in high-risk tasks such as mine and IED detection.
Germany transfers its mine detection tasks to robotic systems. In this context, Berlin, which has made acquisition in the past years, announced its new procurement decision. Berlin signed an agreement with the Rheinmetall for the platform called Route Clearance System (RCSys), which is said to have a budget of less than 10 million Euros.
Under the contract, the company will transform five Fuchs 1A8 vehicles into the operator vehicle. The mine detection mission will be undertaken by four Wiesel 1s that will be subject to mission-specific modifications. The delivery package also includes the Rheinmetall MAN FSA trucks to be used as the carriers of the Wiesel 1s.
RCSys includes an integrated ground surveillance radar and metal detector. Thus, in the system that enables the detection of buried explosives, Wiesel 1s which are remotely commanded are used as the detection and destruction vehicles. The destruction is carried out by the manipulator arm supported by the camera and stabilization system. The unmanned vehicle is commanded through two consoles stationed on the command and control platform.
