Francis Govers III

Francis Govers is the Chief Robotics Officer for Gamma 2 Robotics, Inc. He is the designer of over 25 unmanned vehicles for land, sea, air and space.  As the deputy Chief Engineer for the US Army’s Future Combat Systems Unmanned Vehicles, he led the design of the Armed Robotic Vehicle (ARV), ARV-RSTA, the MULE, MULE Countermine and MULE ARV-Light, as well as the iRobot SUGV (Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle).  He designed a number of robots as Chief Engineer for Elbit Systems. He was a participant in the first DARPA Grand Challenge, and was a leader of the DARPA EATR (Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot) program.  Other notable positions: Lead Engineer for Command and Control for the International Space Station; H/W engineer on the Shuttle Mission Simulator; Director of the Advanced Simulation Laboratory; PM of Flight Simulation for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; Special Missions Manager for Zeppelin at Airship Ventures; Professor at the Unmanned Vehicle University;  Chief Engineer for Elbit Systems of America; VP of Engineering for Sportvision, the creators of the “yellow line” for NFL football; developed in-car telemetry for NASCAR, IndyCar, and GrandAm.  He is a regular contributor to GIZMAG and Robot Magazine, on the editorial board of the International Journal of Unmanned Systems Engineering, and co-author of the book, “Introduction to Unmanned Vehicle Systems”.  Mr. Govers has earned his commercial pilot rating, and is a US Air Force veteran.