Market for ground robots poised for a turnaround.

• Author: Harper, Jon

* The market for ground robots is set to expand as technology advancements give the machines greater utility on the battlefield and elsewhere, according to defense officials and industry experts.

The military market for unmanned ground vehicles has been sluggish since the U.S. pulled most of its troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Iraq and Afghanistan fueled the huge increase in overall demand" for ground robots during the last decade, said Larry Dickerson, a market analyst at Forecast International. "The drawdown of operations in both the countries did have an impact on overall production."

But industry observers expect the market to pick up in the coming years as the Defense Department seeks new robots for a multitude of missions. The Pentagon has said it is interested in unmanned ground systems for: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; disaster response; chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials detection; transport and logistics; and countermine and counter-improvised explosive device missions.

"Even though U.S. spending has kind of been reduced right now, it is expected to go up because they are looking at a very wide range of systems besides replacing the traditional DoD type of robots," Dickerson said.

Tom Frost, senior vice president and general manager of the defense and security business unit at iRobot--a leading supplier of unmanned ground vehicles for the U.S. military--anticipates business improving.

"What we're seeing now is a reversal of that [downward] trend--just the beginning of that reversal--and also the Army and Navy laying in long-term plans for the next generation of unmanned ground vehicles," he said.

The Defense Department's latest "Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap," a 25-year plan released in late 2013, anticipates a "gradual upward trend in 2016 and beyond" when it comes to the Pentagon's funding and inventory for ground robots.

Forecast International predicts that the global market value for unmanned ground vehicles--among militaries and civilian agencies--will grow 477 percent over the next decade, from $69.9 million in 2015 to $403.6 million in 2024. Unit production is projected to double during that timeframe.

Pentagon spending on ground robots would soar even higher than projected if another major conflict erupted, experts said.

"Booms, at least in the defense budget, are linked to war," said Peter Singer, a robotics expert at the New America Foundation. "If we get into a larger scale conflict... then most definitely" you would see a massive increase.

During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Army purchased more than 7,000 "non-standard equipment" robots through urgent operational needs statements and other emergency funding mechanisms, said Scott Davis, the Army's program executive officer for combat support and combat service support.

The Army is now moving to establish more stable...