Polar Power Inc (POLA)

[southacresdave]

Army SMET update:

The latest article (it's been awhile since I've seen an update) shows that the Army was very pleased with the program in it's latest testing in May at Ft Bening. Enough so that they are pushing it ahead. However, they have decided that it doesn't work at the squad level and would be more appropriate at the battalion level where it can be maintained easier and then assigned down to squads and companies for certain deployments.

It will probably reduce the total # needed (3000-5000 from before down to ??), but makes it more likely that the contract occurs with this latest classification. There was always the worry that the Army decided that the technology "wasn't there yet". They've done that many times on other projects.

As for POLA, they still need to get one of their partners (they have 2 of the 4 in the phase 2 testing) as the final choice to be rewarded. I still say that they have a very good chance as it's tough for the Polaris unit to put a machine gun on it when there is a roll cage in the way. That takes it down to 3. The next non-POLA partner has pneumatic tires. I think the best chance is with the two partners the have....HDT's unit with flexible solid wheels and, especially, the Textron Grizzly with tank tracks.

---"The SMET is currently going through the requirements approval process in the Army Requirements Oversight Council.

Benning officials hope that process will be complete by this summer, so the Army can begin the down-select process to choose the SMET prototype that will go into into production for fielding next year.

So that is moving quickly because we want to begin fielding in fiscal year 2020," Sando said.---

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/06/12/army-hopes-field-robotic-mules-carry-gear-next-year.html