With over 100 models of unmanned vehicles now available for military and civilian safety, security or rescue
applications, it is important to for agencies to establish acceptance testing. However, there appears to be no general
guidelines for what constitutes a reasonable acceptance test. This paper describes i) a preliminary method for acceptance
testing by a customer of the mechanical and electrical components of an unmanned ground vehicle system, ii) how it has
been applied to a man-packable micro-robot, and iii) discusses the value of testing both to ensure that the customer has a
workable system and to improve design. The test method automated the operation of the robot to repeatedly exercise all
aspects and combinations of components on the robot for 6 hours. The acceptance testing process uncovered many
failures consistent with those shown to occur in the field, showing that testing by the user does predict failures. The
process also demonstrated that the testing by the manufacturer can provide important design data that can be used to
identify, diagnose, and prevent long-term problems. Also, the structured testing environment showed that sensor
systems can be used to predict errors and changes in performance, as well as uncovering unmodeled behavior in
subsystems.
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