US Army to Demo Robotic Wingman Vehicles in 2017
The idea is to give the weapons loader on an Abrams tank the responsibility to control unmanned air and ground vehicles by equipping the tank with an automatic loader
Ami Rojkes Dombe
| 29/12/2016
Spc. Christen Best VLC1 - M1A1 Abrams from 1-72nd Armor Regiment line up in preparation to assault a town during Warrior Focus, a training exercise involving the entire 1st HBCT, Feb. 10 at the Combined Arms Collective Training Facility at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex. www.army.mil
The US Army is planning to demonstrate a host of combat vehicles in the role of robotic wingmen in 2017 at Fort Benning, Georgia, as it prepares to enter an official program of record in 2023, according to Defense News.
The service is already successfully teaming unmanned and manned aircraft in the field, pairing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters with Shadow and Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft to fill the role of an armed scout helicopter after the Army retired its OH-58 Kiowa Warriors.
But teaming vehicles on the ground poses more challenges such as safely navigating around stationary or moving obstacles and rolling over rough terrain.
One of the efforts planned for the summer of 2017 at Fort Benning will assess whether it’s possible to give the weapons loader on an Abrams tank the responsibility to control unmanned air and ground vehicles by equipping the tank with an automatic loader, Lt. Gen. Michael Lundy, the commanding general at the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said during a teleconference with reporters this month.
Lundy noted an automatic loader, which is a proven capability not yet fielded, would be integrated into an Abrams in order to take the burden off the weapons loader and free that crew member for unmanned systems operations duty.
Also this summer at Fort Benning, the Army will conduct a joint capability technology demonstration of the robotic wingman concept using Humvees. The second phase, to be conducted later at an unspecified time, will demonstrate the same capability using M113s, according to a set of slides used during a presentation at a capabilities information exchange between industry and Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Eustis, Virginia, this month.
The demonstrations will feed into the development of the Army’s planned programs of record for both a semiautonomous robotic wingman starting in 2023 and an autonomous version that would come online in 2035, the slides noted.
The idea is to give the weapons loader on an Abrams tank the responsibility to control unmanned air and ground vehicles by equipping the tank with an automatic loader
Spc. Christen Best VLC1 - M1A1 Abrams from 1-72nd Armor Regiment line up in preparation to assault a town during Warrior Focus, a training exercise involving the entire 1st HBCT, Feb. 10 at the Combined Arms Collective Training Facility at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex. www.army.mil
The US Army is planning to demonstrate a host of combat vehicles in the role of robotic wingmen in 2017 at Fort Benning, Georgia, as it prepares to enter an official program of record in 2023, according to Defense News.
The service is already successfully teaming unmanned and manned aircraft in the field, pairing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters with Shadow and Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft to fill the role of an armed scout helicopter after the Army retired its OH-58 Kiowa Warriors.
But teaming vehicles on the ground poses more challenges such as safely navigating around stationary or moving obstacles and rolling over rough terrain.
One of the efforts planned for the summer of 2017 at Fort Benning will assess whether it’s possible to give the weapons loader on an Abrams tank the responsibility to control unmanned air and ground vehicles by equipping the tank with an automatic loader, Lt. Gen. Michael Lundy, the commanding general at the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said during a teleconference with reporters this month.
Lundy noted an automatic loader, which is a proven capability not yet fielded, would be integrated into an Abrams in order to take the burden off the weapons loader and free that crew member for unmanned systems operations duty.
Also this summer at Fort Benning, the Army will conduct a joint capability technology demonstration of the robotic wingman concept using Humvees. The second phase, to be conducted later at an unspecified time, will demonstrate the same capability using M113s, according to a set of slides used during a presentation at a capabilities information exchange between industry and Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Eustis, Virginia, this month.
The demonstrations will feed into the development of the Army’s planned programs of record for both a semiautonomous robotic wingman starting in 2023 and an autonomous version that would come online in 2035, the slides noted.
