WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Army’s race to field a lightweight robotic combat vehicle gets underway in the third quarter of 2023, project programmers are working on new tests and evaluation criteria to certify the technology.
While autonomous vehicles are slowly moving into the commercial realm, the Defense Department’s robotic vehicle development effort spans nearly two decades, and the Army considers combat vehicles its top modernization priority.
The winner of the competition is expected to deliver the first prototype units by 2028, according to Maj. Corey Wallace, robotics requirements lead for the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicles cross-functional team. In the meantime, programmers are taking new considerations about how to test the technology before it hits the battlefield, which could include learning from the civilian world.
“At RCV, we’re looking at new systems and new approaches like this,” Wallace said in an interview with C4ISRNET. “A lot of the testing procedures that are employed today are not the most efficient.”
Military combat vehicles have traditionally had to meet certain standards, such as completing a certain number of test miles, and robotic vehicles intended to operate autonomously may not have to meet the same standards, he said.
Wallace said the military might instead consider certifying vehicles in a virtual environment rather than actually driving them the same distances required for a conventional combat vehicle. Test and evaluation standards might also look to companies already in the autonomous vehicle space to see what can be replicated in the military.
Programmers are “very open to trying new ways of testing,” Wallace said. “We’re [off] We are doing similar work in the civilian world to see if we can create efficiencies by implementing their testing standards.”
The Army plans to spend about $750 million over the next five years developing light robotic vehicles, according to budget justification documents for fiscal year 2023. While the majority of the funding will go toward developing the robotic platform and its control system, the Army will run a parallel second acquisition program focused on building out the software and autonomy capabilities that will eventually be added to the platform.
Wallace stressed the need to develop ways to test software functionality, rather than checking each line of code, to see changes between iterations. If programmers get bogged down in evaluating software code, the program can lose momentum during the certification process, Wallace said.
Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the Army’s program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems, told C4ISRNET that by separating the software acquisition paths, the Army aims to develop software-centric capabilities that can support any future robotic combat vehicle configuration.
“A core element of the program that we’re running is establishing a base vehicle architecture and a base software architecture, so that we can add functionality as a software module without having to go back and test all the other software modules and make sure they’re working properly,” he said.
The Army aims to develop three classes of robotic vehicles — light, medium and heavy — for use in reconnaissance and escort for manned combat vehicles, starting with the light program.
Both light and medium replacement prototypes were tested this summer at Fort Hood, Texas, but in the spring the Air Force announced it was postponing development of the medium vehicle in favor of focusing on the smaller platform first.
According to Brigadier General Jeffrey Norman, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, the Fort Hood tests and future experiments will help examine the range of capabilities appropriate for light and medium platforms.
Dean said that once these experiments refine the requirements, the team will launch a specific program focused on medium-duty vehicles.
Katherine Bukaniec is a reporter for C4ISRNET covering artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare and unmanned technology.