The US Marines are continuing efforts to develop a cargo-carrying robotic “mule” meant to accompany ground troops on foot patrols and into combat.  While other branches of the military have had difficulty keeping costs down, the Marines are trying to use off-the-shelf hardware to be more cost efficient.

Known as the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate (GUSS) mule, it is being jointly designed by the Marines’ Warfighting Lab, Virginia-based tech firm TORC Technologies and students at Virginia Tech.  Vehicle prototypes are based on a stock MZ700 6×6 utility vehicle from Polaris.  In July four prototypes reportedly performed well in early stage testing using “realistic training events”.  Learn more:  Flightglobal.com