Army Creates New Office to Integrate Existing Unmanned Systems Across Combat Roles

Autonomous combat engineering for mobility, counter-mobility, replacing, displacing and shaping obstacles is the top priority. Fires ranks second. That includes connecting existing systems and fielding automated target recognition and call-for-fire algorithms, which Gibbs described as mature technologies that have been demonstrated for years but lacked a single owner.

"Those technologies are mature, they're just cross-cutting. No one owns them. We're saying we own those spaces," Gibbs said. Sustainment, especially resupply at echelon and casualty evacuation known as CASEVAC, is the third priority.

Ongoing efforts include the Autonomous Transport Vehicle System program and demonstrations of autonomous ship-to-shore resupply using unmanned surface vessels and ground robots. Gibbs noted that in contested areas the Army can no longer assume it will move people and supplies as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. "If you move exposed, you're going to be targeted," he said.

For CASEVAC, unmanned systems may not be the preferred solution but provide needed options when helicopters cannot safely reach wounded soldiers. Launched effects are not in CPE Mission Autonomy's portfolio, but the office will help enable them. The new organization will develop a reference architecture to onboard new platforms, payloads and technologies in weeks or days rather than months or years.

Gibbs prompted industry to build to open APIs and avoid proprietary interfaces, especially for counter-UAS, electronic warfare and weapon payloads. Counter-UAS and electronic warfare are supporting efforts that can largely be done with unmanned and autonomous systems.