There are a wide variety of applications for mobile robots. What all these applications have in common is carrying a remote human presence into hazardous or difficult to access environments. Depending on the mission and the robot’s level of autonomy, that human presence may range from infrequent to constant.

Unmanned vehicle applications cover the full range of human presence. For instance, a fire department remote search and rescue vehicle requires a human operator to be controlling operations all the time. At the other end of the spectrum, a military sentry vehicle will be fully autonomous most of the time, only requiring a remote human presence in order to assess possible intruders. Whenever remote human presence is required, however, the effectiveness of that presence is critical to overall mission effectiveness. A factor of three improvement in the human/robotic interface translates directly into a factor of three improvement in mission performance.

Military applications are amongst the most demanding. Operators need the greatest degreee of situational awareness possible. Tests with experienced Explosive Ordnance Disposal soldiers show that the HARV system greatly increases overall mission performance.

Civilian commercial applications can also be very demanding. From the standpoint of safety and cost effectiveness, companies want to remotely operate the heavy equipment used in large earth-moving operations, but current vision systems do not provide enough productivity. As shown by tests on bulldozers and skid loaders, a HARV system allows highly efficient operations, regardless of where the operator is located.