The project at a glance
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Start date:01 Aug 2026
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Duration in months:36
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Funding:Fonds National de la Recherche / Ministry of Defense Luxembourg
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Principal Investigator(s):Rapha毛l FRANK
About
This joint defense project will be carried out by the company Luxbotix and the UBIX research group at SnT, 8xav福利导航 of Luxembourg. The project targets the design and validation of a modular, solar-electric defence ground platform capable of carrying up to a two-ton payload through three incremental capability stages: mechanical robustness, autonomous navigation, and GNSS-independent operation. In stage one, Luxbotix will design and engineer a rugged chassis, drivetrain, and standardized payload interfaces derived from field-proven civil robots, creating a configurable carrier for logistics, MedEvac, EOD/demining support, ISR, and counter-UAS payloads. This mechanically mature platform, already usable as a remotely operated carrier, will integrate extensive photovoltaic modules and advanced power management to support multi-day missions with a reduced logistical footprint. Stage two introduces increasingly sophisticated autonomous navigation in benign and moderately contested environments, combining multi-sensor fusion (LiDAR, radar, RGB/IR cameras, IMU), SLAM, and semantic perception via Vision-Language-Action models to enable safe path planning and operator-supervised mission execution. In stage three, the autonomy stack is extended to maintain reliable localisation and mission continuity under GNSS denial and communication degradation, using semantic map-matching, prior terrain information, and hierarchical mission planning to ensure graceful degradation and explainable behaviour. Each capability stage culminates in testing campaigns in which the platform is evaluated with defence stakeholders in relevant scenarios, providing useful functionality at every step while converging toward TRL 7: an EW-resilient, energy-autonomous ground system that strengthens European strategic autonomy in strictly defensive applications.
Organisation and Partners
- Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT)
- Ubiquitous and Intelligent Systems (UBIX)
- Luxbotix
Project team
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Rapha毛l FRANK
Keywords
- Autonomous Ground Vehicle
- Robotics
- Multi Sensor Perception
- Vision Language Action Model
- Solar-Electric Energy Autonomy
- GNSS-denied Localisation and Navigation