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Russia’s top brass to get casualty evacuation robots by 2023

The contract is estimated at $3.6 million

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/. Russia’s Defense Ministry has placed an order for developing multirole medical robots for evacuating the wounded from the battlefield. The order for the relevant experimental design work was posted on the government procurement website on Friday.

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"The Defense Ministry of Russia notifies about holding a closed tender for fulfilling the experimental design work: ‘Developing Multi-Functional Robotized Medical Systems for Evacuating the Wounded and Incapacitated Personnel on Advanced Ground Carriers (codenamed ‘Evacuation-R’)," the document says.

The contract is estimated at 249,982,141.5 rubles ($3.6 million) and the work is required to be completed "by November 10, 2022."

Under the contract, 85,000,000 rubles ($1.2 million) will be allocated in 2020, 127,000,000 rubles ($1.8 million) in 2021 and 37,982,141 rubles ($550,000) in 2022. The results of the tender will be summed up on August 5 this year.

Evacuation-R robot

The gazeta.ru news portal reported in October 2016 that Russia’s Defense Ministry had initiated research into developing a family of robotized systems. The news portal reported at the time that the R&D work ‘Evacuation-R’ estimated at 90 million rubles ($1.3 million in current prices) was aimed at defining the conceptual design and tactics of using medical robots in the Armed Forces.

The researchers were assigned the task of finding technical solutions for creating medical evacuation platforms and automated technologies of diagnosing and controlling the general state of the wounded, sick and affected personnel.

The project envisaged several stages for its implementation. Following the R&D effort, the Defense Ministry was expected to get performance specifications for opening experimental design work to develop a robotized vehicle capable of independently finding, identifying and withdrawing the wounded from the battlefield, and also moving across various terrain, inside premises, negotiating obstacles and climbing ladders.

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