The U.S. Army paired manned platforms with robotic systems on the ground as part of the manned-unmanned teaming demonstration held Tuesday at Fort Benning in Georgia, Defense News reported Friday.The service branch’s Maneuver Center of Excellence combined a semiautonomous MRZR combat vehicle with an unmanned Hoverfly quadcopter to carry out reconnaissance operations as part of the exercise’s first scenario.
The Army also used a robotic wingman with a long range advance scout surveillance system – LRAS3 – to lead a group of crewed Humvees to detect positions of adversaries as well as a manned M113 armored personnel carrier to field a ground-based robot – Packbot – to conduct surveillance operations.
The robotic wingman fired at enemy targets after it received information from the manned Humvee.
The military branch also used the MRZR to perform reconnaissance, an Abrams tank section and a semiautonomous M58 vehicle with a smoke generator called Wolf as part of the Abrams Lethality Enabler demonstration.
The M58 Wolf vehicle works to conceal and allow the tank to move into its position by fielding heavy smoke.
The Army carried out the two-part demonstration in compliance with the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Strategy and Combat Vehicle Modernization Strategy.
Robert Sadowski, robotics chief with the Army’s tank automotive research, development and engineering center, said the service expects to transition the land-based robotic programs to the National Training Center within two to five years.
