Army looks to limit early Robotic Combat Vehicle missions to keep soldiers out of harm’s way - July 23, 2024
- Core Insights Advisory Services
- Jul 22, 2024
- 1 min read
July 23, 2024
WASHINGTON — "Earlier this year, US Army soldiers took a few prototype Robotic Combat Vehicles (RCVs) out for a spin at Fort Irwin, Calif., in a demonstration that cemented in their minds a key issue with the tech’s stated raison d’etre: Right now, it doesn’t keep human soldiers far enough from danger.
The service eventually wants autonomous software to handle the bulk of navigation for its future robotic fleet, but as the service is likely to be sorting out that technological challenge for years, the first RCVs in the field will have to depend on what’s known as a radio “tether.”
As it was arranged at Irwin, that meant five soldiers were packed into a trailing vehicle to control two frontline RCVs — one driver and two teams of two each remotely manning an RCV — that had to stay close enough to maintain the radio link."