DATE: March 20, 2019 11:32:13 AM CDT

MEDIA ADVISORY: Ft. Hood Explosive Ordnance Disposal Soldiers to test new Man Transportable Robotic System Thursday

WEST FORT HOOD, Texas — EOD Soldiers with the 737th Ordnance Company and 937th Route Clearance Company will take part in operational testing of a new robot system Thursday. 

Media are invited to attend testing of the new Man Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) in the field. 

The test training scenario dictates the EOD team will be alerted to a possible threat and travel to the threat location to investigate and determine how to best handle whatever it is they encounter.

Testing will determine whether or not the MTRS is effective, suitable, and survivable, and is another step in the Army’s continual modernization of its equipment, using information Soldiers learn during combat, and translating it into improved battlefield capabilities through operational testing.

The robot is designed to provide Soldiers with increased standoff capability to detect, confirm, identify, and dispose of hazards in a variety of missions and environments.

Working with Operational Test Command test officers, NCOs, and Civilians, the EOD teams are providing the human element necessary for training hard under realistic operational scenarios against threats they may face in the real world.

Soldiers and test units have the ability to impact development of systems through rigorous training while executing doctrinally-realistic missions, and then providing direct input to the combat developer of the system.

OTC has also invited about 20 of Fort Hood’s Mission Installation Contracting Command personnel — who assist operational testing via contracts — to view the MTRS test, so they have a better understanding of their support role of Army equipment testing.

Media representatives interested in covering the event should contact Michael Novogradac, OTC’s public affairs officer, at 254-288-9110, or email: [email protected] to be escorted to the testing event.

A public affairs escort will meet the media at the West Fort Hood Clarke Road gate at 10 a.m. Thursday.

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About the U.S. Army Operational Test Command:

Operational testing began Oct. 1, 1969, and as the Army’s only independent operational tester, OTC is celebrating “50 Years of Operational Testing.” The unit enlists the “Total Army” (Active, National Guard, and Reserve) when testing Army, joint, and multi-service warfighting systems in realistic operational environments, using typical Soldiers to determine whether the systems are effective, suitable, and survivable. OTC is required by public law to test major systems before they are fielded to its ultimate customer – the American Soldier. 

OTC’s mission is about making sure that systems developed are effective in a Soldier’s hands and suitable for the environments in which Soldiers train and fight. Test units and their Soldiers offer their feedback, which influences the future by offering input to improve upon existing and future systems that Soldiers will ultimately use to train and fight with.

In this photo from a previous OTC news release, Soldiers from the 181st Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Company “Double Dragons,” use the Man-Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) Increment II to conduct a CBRN quartering party mission with attached CBRN detection equipment. CBRN units are able to employ various CBRN detection equipment on the MTRS Increment II instead of placing Soldiers into potentially hazardous environments to inform future force protection decisions. The U.S. Army Operational Test Command (OTC), based at West Fort Hood, Texas is conducting the MTRS Increment II Limited User Test (LUT) to collect data to inform senior Army leaders on how effective, suitable, and reliable this robotic platform will be during real-world operations. (Photo by Mr. Tad Browning, Audiovisual Production Specialist, Test Documentation Team, U.S. Army Operational Test Command)