Army fires live weapons from autonomous vehicle

The Australian Army has confirmed it fired live weapons mounted on an autonomous M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) as part of a Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) demonstration coordinated by its Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation & Coordination Office (RICO).The demonstration, which also included Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS), other autonomous robots and crewed tanks and APCs, took place at the Army base at Puckapunyal.

RICO director Colonel Robin Smith said the aim was to converge several RICO projects into a simulated future warfare environment: “The most powerful way of operating autonomy is as a human-machine team,” he said. “We wanted to see how humans and intelligent machines can work together.”

The enemy was detected first by UASs equipped with Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensor payloads. When they were detected the enemy communications were jammed by a second swarm of UAS equipped with Electronic warfare (EW) payloads.

Optionally Crewed Combat Vehicles (OCCV) – enhanced M113AS4s – then moved into supporting fire position, uncrewed, ready to fire on the enemy with their tele-operated weapon systems.

Trooper Damen Holmes, of 4/19 Prince of Wales’s light Horse, was one soldier trained on OCCV operation.

“They’re easy to operate, like driving vehicles on an Xbox,” he said. “A crew can operate these vehicles, but then you can flip a few switches and drive it remotely.”

It was also the first time Army fired a remote weapon system from the remote-controlled vehicle. Demonstration combat team commander Captain Balazs Bauer said up to three of these vehicles could be remotely operated from a single control vehicle up to 5km away.

“These enable us to engage threats from a distance while keeping soldiers away from potential harm as well as generating combat mass for the commander,” Captain Bauer said.

The force commander then released a third swarm of more than 200 armed (simulated) UASs assaulting from above. After their attack, a manned tank troop and mechanised platoon advanced, destroying what remains of the enemy.

Afterwards, robots operating on advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) software would then be let loose to clear the last 300 metres, reducing risk to soldiers. Using image recognition and context awareness, they would identify dead, injured and surrendering enemy personnel while supported by tanks.

The robots did deploy, controlled remotely, from an uncrewed vehicle during the demonstration. Once cleared, a convoy of autonomous, crewed and uncrewed support vehicles arrived for the back loading of casualties and resupply.

“Today was very enlightening,” Captain Bauer said. “We have gained a better understanding of how to use these machines offensively.”

Colonel Smith said the technology would change the way Army trains and fights, improve decision-making, generate mass and scalable effects as well as reduce risk to Australian soldiers.