Field Trials of Turkey’s Combat-Reconnaissance UGV in July

The first field trials of the Barkan unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) built by Turkish firm Havelsan, will start in July 2021.

The UGV is capable of conducting armed reconnaissance and surveillance and to support elements in the field.

Muhittin Solmaz, the company’s deputy general manager, told government-owned Anadolu Agency that their aim is to enable autonomous systems to engage in joint operations. In order to do this, the company needs to ensure that it is able to integrate the swarm algorithms it has developed into platforms from various manufacturers.

“Barkan has been developed as a middle-class first-level UGV, and it will be able to work together with the under-cloud UAV called Baha, or with other drones,” he said. “We have reached a structure where they can share tasks and work together in a herd.”

Havelsan has developed two prototype Barkan UGVs. Some modifications could be made following field tests and feedback.

Barkan weighs around 500kg nd will be meeting the technical specification criteria in the middle-class first-level category of the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB).

The official also revealed that they have ntegrated the remote-controlled Sarp weapon system into the vehicle and they provide a wide range of opportunities to the operator through remote control with many communication devices in the vehicle and all-around vision capability.

Works on heavy-class unmanned land vehicles will follow the launch of Barkan, Solmaz added.