We designed an AI-driven energy prediction tool for the U.S. Army’s robotic combat vehicles.

The Challenge

Predict with precision

Exergi Predictive was chosen as the energy management arm of the Army Application Lab’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program. Visual Logic was brought in to ensure their planning, prediction and management capabilities were useful and intuitive to users.

Managing energy is an age-old military challenge that relies on meticulous planning and prediction. It’s even harder with autonomous robotic combat vehicles. These unmanned systems depend on battery power to move, navigate, communicate, and use payloads in highly dynamic battlefields.

If not planned for carefully, fluctuating energy demands from terrain, soil type, wind, mission type, and tempo can lead to inefficiencies, reduced capabilities, or even mission failure.

The Army needed an AI-powered planning, prediction, and management tool for energy. From the operator’s perspective, it also had to be intuitive, usable under pressure, and reliable in chaotic conditions.

The Work

Here’s how we helped Exergi

Key UX activities:

• Product Strategy
• Product Design
• Personas
• Journey Maps
• Contextual Scenarios
• Information Architecture
• In-depth User Research & Interviews
• SME Interviews
• Custom Visual Asset Design
• Interaction Design
• Prototyping
• Dev Collaboration
• Marketing & Communication Design

Through rapid ideation, we learned what works for users and what doesn’t. We call this “failing fast” — ideating based on the information we have, trusting that incremental progress will get us further than striving for perfection on the first draft.

When bridging the gaps between predictive AI and human operators, it’s important to design for trust, confidence, and control when the AI falls short.

Over time we carved out a comprehensive design framework that balanced complex prediction and planning capabilities with simple, understandable readouts for situational awareness and inputs for operator autonomy.

This infographic shows what Exergi owns (orange) and what it pulls from and contributes to (blue).

This sales graphic shows historical status (left) with Exergi Predictive’s future status projections (right). Energy prediction is made possible thanks to their digital twin, simulation, and ML models.