Hanwha Defense’s unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) will participate in the US Army’s competitive field test and evaluation program to penetrаte the superpower’s potential military market.

This is the first time a Korean unmanned weapons system has been selected for testing in the US, paving the way for potential cooperation with future US military modernization programs.

The UGV, codenamed Arion-SMET, was selected as one of the devices for the Foreign Comparative Test (FCT) run by the Office of the Secretary of Defense of the US Department of Defense. The FCT is intended to test the products and technologies of U.S. allied nations that have a high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) to quickly and economically meet U.S. defense requirements.

Executive Vice President EVP Youngwoo Seo said: “Along with modern legacy weapon systems such as the K9, Hanwha Defense has strived to provide autonomous and robotic systems with excellent technical and tactical capabilities, unique design since 2006. Arion-SMET is the latest version of this program, representing a powerful combat vehicle in the era of development of UGV Teams (MUM-T) and has recently received a lot of attention from domestic and international markets because of its impressive, easily expandable tactical functions at competitive prices.

“This is an important achievement for Hanwha Defense and the Korean defense industry. Arion-SMET’s participation in the FCT program proves that our defense robotics and unmanned systems technology is world-class and recognized as competitive enough to penetrаte the US and other markets. other foreign countries,” emphasized EVP Youngwoo Seo, leader of the Defense Robotics and Autonomous System Development Department.

Following the FCT’s decision, the company is discussing detailed terms with US military officials on how to conduct field tests and on potential missions to be carried out. According to initial information, comparative tests on Arion-SMET are expected to take place as early as the end of this year, on a US Army base.

Arion-SMET is an acronym for Automatic and Robotic systems, performing reconnaissance, mobile intelligence and navigation tasks on terrain – Transporting small multi-purpose equipment. The 2-ton UGV vehicle with a 6×6 motion system, built on the 4×4 multi-purpose UGV platform, developed in 2019 within the framework of the military-civilian research and development cooperation program led by Hanwha Defense leads.

The South Korean Army successfully operated Arion-SMET in 2021, testing the tactical operation capabilities of the robotic combat vehicle. Arion-SMET was built primarily to support infantry combat operations on the battlefield such as transporting ammunitiоn and weapons; Evacuating the wоunded, reconnaissance and monitoring the battlefield space by remote or automatic control, providing fire support in combat. The vehicle is designed with modular controls to meet the requirements for different tasks.

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Some of ARION-SMET’s key technologies include autonomous terrain navigation, a tethering device to track a soldier or vehicle; return to starting position automatically when there is a communication failure; MUM-T group activity support software.

The vehicle is equipped with a remote-controlled weapon station based on the Deep Neural Network (DNN), which can detect/track enemy soldiers, localize the location of gunshots and shoot back. in the direction of the explоsiоn.

Building on these innovative capabilities, Arion-SMET is optimized to support combined manned and unmanned combat (MUM-T) operations for ground troops. Arion-SMET is electric, flexible and highly maneuverable, with a maximum speed of 43 km/h on paved roads and 34 km/h on dirt roads.

UGV can run up to 100km when fully charged, with a maximum load of 550kg. Arion-SMET is the most modern 6×6 unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) among UGVs developed by Korean company Hanwha Defense.

Hanwha Defense is Korea’s leading defense company with many business branches globally. Hanwha Defense provides a wide range of advanced ground defense systems from artillery, armored vehicles, air defense weapon systems and combat robots.