Unmanned ground vehicles or UGVs are usually associated with ground robotic systems i.e. unmanned systems that are built for travelling ground surfaces. Depending on how autonomous systems is (autonomy levels are discussed later) the UGV might be both completely human operator-controlled via remote control link or autonomously operating system. In both border cases, the system itself is unmanned. Due to advantages over human-operated or manned vehicles in different applications domains, UGVs are rather widely used systems. The most common applications are related to domains, where it is convenient to replace human-operator or driver, due to safety reasons or hazardous operating conditions. Some typical applications domains are discussed below:

This one of the most desired application domains, where human is a constant danger of being hit by hostile fire as well as being under highly physical conditions and stress. Therefore, remotely operated UGVs are rather commonly used by different armies all over the world. The main challenges being tackled is to remove soldiers from the line of fire i.e. while the soldier is undercover he can use remote control and operate an armoured or armed UGV. Thus, both soldier safety and operational goals are met. Unfortunately, due to the complexity of military operations and due to unstructured environmental conditions, a fully autonomous system is yet to come. The majority of the military UGVs is fully remote-controlled, where human-operator is constantly looking after UGVs operation. A good example of military UGV is the Milrem system (www.milrem.com) developed jointly by Estonian and Finnish companies, enabling different configurations, modularity and variable control options.

In a logistics application, the majority of systems enables automated delivery of good within a limited territory – manufacturing plant or logistics centre. A widely known example is the result of cooperation between Kiva systems and Amazon, which resulted in Amazon robotics (https://www.amazonrobotics.com/#/). While there are several technology providers and still the challenge being tackled is the management of multiple logistic robots at once ensuring harmonized simultaneous operation. However, there are attempts to build outdoor logistic systems so-called last-mile delivery systems. A good example is the Starship system (https://www.starship.xyz/) provided by StarpShip technologies. The Starship solution provides the best of autonomous driving and remote control enabling flexible and relatively safe payload delivery within a limited territory. Currently, the solution is available in the USA and Estonia.

However, to provide the best of the technology some legal prerequisites should be met including changes in road control rules. Another significant change is social acceptance which has to be led by a positive example and real benefits for society.

Industrial cleaning is one of the areas that seem to be obvious to be enhanced by fully autonomous systems – cleaning robots. There is a major shift already and several producers have announced their products. Among them, some well-known brands within the domain might be noticed – Nilfisk (https://new.nilfisk.com/global/campaigns/intelligent-cleaning/), Hako (https://www.hako.co.uk/machines/robotic-cleaning-equipment/), Karcher (https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2019/11/19/brain-corp-partners-with-karcher-to-develop-new-autonomous-floor-cleaner/26781/) and others. The technology itself not always is developed by the producer itself. For instance, Brain Corp (https://www.braincorp.com/), develops autonomous technology but not cleaning machines. Therefore, mutually beneficial development is achieved. In terms of technology different approaches might be notices – a traditional approach, where robot control is achieved through real-time data acquisition, robot dynamics modelling and action planning, while Brain Corp relies more on machine learning. Thereby, one can see the same technology diversity as in the case of autonomous cars. Another challenge is the cooperativeness of individual robotic systems, which is also developed by several technology providers like Squad Robotics (https://www.squad-robotics.com/).

Cooperativeness is still among wanted but no yet available technologies in the cleaning domain.

While agriculture seems to be one of the most mechanized and automated, in terms of robotics it rather weakly developed. There are a lot of discussions and research communities like the ICT-Agri-food (https://www.ictagrifood.eu/) community, but still, due to various reasons, the number of deployed robots is insignificant. A good example is a FarmBot system (https://farm.bot/), which provides the full cycle of growing vegetables in peoples back yard. Unfortunately, most of the systems being currently on the market cover only a small fraction of the whole food production workflow – transport, quality control, fertilization, harvesting or other limited functionality. This is a consequence of the high complexity of the food production domain. However, among all of the application milking, farm keeping is one of the most automated including feeding robots and cleaning roots that are fully autonomous – Lely automation solutions are among the most advanced currently available (https://www.lely.com/).