Army wants to incorporate autonomy into terrain-shaping missions

The Army is looking to leverage autonomy to place and recover terrain-shaping obstacles across the battlefield as "dull, dirty, dangerous jobs" are becoming the best-use cases for robots in brigade combat teams, according to the command sergeant major at the service's Futures and Concepts Center.

“I think anything sustainment, and I think anything terrain-shaping, breaching, I think those would be the two categories that . . . provide a lot of opportunity quickly to save soldiers’ lives,” Command Sgt. Maj. William Justice said during an Aug. 13 warfighter panel at the National Defense Industrial Association’s annual ground vehicle symposium in Michigan.

That same day, the Army, in partnership with the United Kingdom, put out a request for white papers seeking feedback from companies on developing a modular, terrain-shaping capability for ground forces at the BCT level.

BCTs use terrain-shaping obstacles, like landmines, on defense to upset, slow down or channel enemy formations into “engagement areas,” according to the Army -- on offense they can isolate targets, mitigate enemy repositioning or halt counterattacks.

The Army and the United Kingdom, which is playing an advisory role in the market research process, want industry to report back on modern and future technologies that can help the service develop requirements for a network-enabled system of systems for terrain shaping, with production planned by 2030, according to the request for information.

The Army RFI lays out four capability areas for feedback in support of the system of systems:

• Autonomous emplacement and recovery: The capability should be able to autonomously navigate the battlefield to “deliver, emplace and recover” obstacles within line of sight or beyond line of sight.
• Obstacle effectiveness: The fields of obstacles employed should be able to take out enemy tanks and vehicles using kinetic effects, like deployable payloads, and non-kinetic effects, like electronic warfare.
• Obstacle command and control: The terrain-shaping obstacles should tap into the Army’s existing command and control capabilities and be operated by a single controller.
• Obstacle planning: The capability should enable obstacle operation plans to be conducted from the ground, in vehicles or at command posts.

Companies are asked to give their technical approach to the capability, highlight potential risks and plans to mitigate them, projected costs and their past experience with the Defense Department, the RFI says.

Responses are due Oct. 17, according to the Army.