Black-I Robotics, Inc. has won a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y. to supply unmanned ground vehicles and related consulting services. The program will make unmanned vehicles and automobiles more secure from cyber hackers and thus safer.

Black-I Robotics will provide unmanned ground vehicles and consulting services to the Air Force in support of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program. Black-I’s contract amount is $528,000 for the initial delivery to be completed in October 2012. The contract was officially posted 10 July. Black-I Robotics will locally build three LandShark Series H unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). These vehicles will consist of an advanced and proven LandShark mid-sized unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), an operator control unit, a military radio system and several special payloads for the DARPA project. Initial payloads will be a mobile turret, anti-collision radar system and an advanced sensing platform with high-end optical and thermal imaging cameras.