Online, Co-Created Military Vehicle Concept Becomes Working Prototype in 6 Months

Local Motors’ community was asked to develop a vehicle body design that could support two types of missions – Combat Reconnaissance and Combat Delivery & Evacuation, and Dassault Systemes committed to deliver the first co-created military vehicle. The winning vehicle design went from concept to working prototype in less than six months.

Participants in the challenge submitted their designs online for review. Feedback from the community of more than 12,000 designers and enthusiasts enabled participants to incorporate novel ideas and concepts from their peers, helping to create a better vehicle in an open source process.

After receiving and validating more than 150 design entries, Victor Garcia’s FLYPMode design was named the winner of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Crowd-derived Combat-support vehicle (XC2V) Design Challenge and was subsequently built into an operational prototype.

Dassault Systemes supported the project on several levels by providing technology for individuals to design independently and collaborate amongst each other. Dassault Systèmes’ 3DVIA Composer was provided to each design participant as part of the project ignition kit; CATIA was used for packaging and component designs; ENOVIA was used to store and manage both CATIA and SolidWorks design data; and SIMULIA was used for virtual testing and analysis.

“Product co-creation as envisioned by companies such as Local Motors requires a new holistic approach to product development,” said Al Bunshaft, managing director, North America, Dassault Systemes. “This is a great example of how our technologies are enabling true social product development to take place. By empowering individuals to use 3D to share ideas, create products and give feedback, the voice of the end-user can be heard earlier in the process, making sure the end-product is even more closely attuned to actual market need.”