Expect one the most impactful technology transfers in recent decades over the next five years as more technologies and design lessons learned from uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) find a new home on the ground.
That’s the resounding message from recent market research and product development from ePropelled’s Product Manager of Ground Vehicles, David Hudson.
“We’ve economized by using the same tool set to fly a vehicle as we would now do to propel it through water or across land,” says Hudson. “The idea that we can now use robotic, controlled vehicles to do things that were previously manned or crewed activities has become very strong.”
Driven by innovations in navigation and communications, the global uncrewed ground vehicles (UGV) market is estimated to grow from $2.7 billion in 2022 to reach $3.6 billion in 2027, with a CAGR of 5.7% annually, according to a new Markets and Markets report on UGV market trends.
Military uses for new UGV designs will grow the most, says the report. And development of new and advanced payloads, including fully autonomous UGVs, will drive both the commercial and military market segments, the report adds.
Big growth from smaller vehicles
What’s more, smaller UGVs — between 10 and 200 pounds — will grow the most in market volume among all UGV classes, with the overall most development and innovation coming in North America, the report says.
The UGV revolution is really the culmination of a variety of long-term technology and industrial trends that exploit the increased modularity of design, says Hudson, a 40-plus-year veteran of automotive and electric vehicle design engineering for such firms as Jaguar, Aston Martin, Ford, Lotus, and Tata Motors, before joining ePropelled in 2021.
“Having a modular architecture for vehicles means the controller itself doesn’t really care what it’s controlling. If it’s a vehicle, it doesn’t matter if it’s flying, in the water, or on the land,” says Hudson.
The control problem of flying an unmanned aircraft and the problem of controlling an UGV are precisely the same. You have slightly different hazards, but nonetheless the basic motion control and the physics are pretty much the same, he says.
Transfers of tech from air to land pays dividends
But if you have a control system that is already robust from a different domain, like UAVs, and apply it to a new vehicle domain like UGVs, you may be skipping 70 to 90 percent of the testing time, which means significantly reducing your time to deployment, says Hudson.
Therefore, new UGV system development time comes way down. And, very critically, dependence on highly skilled and scarce resources – like the software engineers – comes down, too.
In some ways building UGVs will come with more benefits and lower total costs than the ramp-up in UAV innovation over the past five years.
“The opportunity in ground vehicles is that you’re not so constrained by the vehicle’s mass and the battery size. If you’re trying to fly an aircraft, the weight of everything matters down to the nearest gram,” says Hudson.
There are certainly some limitations but a lot more opportunities for what you can realistically do in the electrically driven ground vehicles arena, he added.
Look for more hybrid propulsion in UGVs
Hybridization of the vehicle propulsion is one technology adaptation that ground vehicles can learn from airborne ones.
“ePropelled has been a pioneer in the use of hybrid propulsion for UAVs, and we would imagine that all the applications that will come down to us for UGVs will be similarly benefited,” says Hudson. “And, in fact, we may even be able to take some UAV propulsion systems and use them as onboard generators for UGVs.”
Where you really can’t do everything fully electric — the crossover zone of the one- to five-ton ground vehicles, for example — may well be a place where we see hybridization happening quickly, according to Hudson.
If we divide up the UGV market, there are smaller UGVs up to around about one ton in vehicle mass. If we take that as a breakpoint, everything below that is pretty easy to electrify because you don’t need a huge amount of power. You don’t need a huge amount of battery energy, he says.
Where some of the motors we have developed for other purely commercial electric vehicle applications work really well in solving the traction problems for any UGVs, said Hudson.
Based in Laconia, NH, USA, ePropelled, Inc. designs and builds a broad array of robust and intelligent propulsion systems for unmanned vehicles. The company empowers unmanned vehicle designers to unleash their total mission creativity by solving the requirements for agile and efficient propulsion systems and solutions.
ePropelled delivers complete electric propulsion solutions, including propulsion motors, engine starters, intelligent power systems, starter generators, and intelligent air motor controllers.
Look to ePropelled for solutions
From tiny to massive, from farm fields to the edge of space, ePropelled’s broad range of propulsion solutions leverage patented advances in real-time software to enable hybrid and highly adaptive thrust power delivery across myriad vehicle and energy supply scenarios.
ePropelled optimizes electric propulsion with advanced technology for real-time data monitoring and intelligent instrumentation. Through ePConnected™, unmanned system performance and reliability are always measured and managed, setting new and ever-improving standards in efficiency and innovation.
For more information, contact ePropelled at info@epropelled.com, call 603-236-7444, or visit https://epropelled.com.
