Faced with a thicket of mines, tank traps, and bunkers, future U.S. Army engineers may use drones and tracked robots to address the problem.
Among the several units experimenting with new tech is the 18th Airborne at Camp Liberty, N.C., where engineers from the 20th Engineer Brigade ran a multi-day experiment in mid-December.
The Army uses drones to map out the positions of enemy mines, and tested drone platforms such as the SkyRaider and Anafi quadcopter.
The engineers then hung a variety of sensors on the drones, including LiDAR, to map the locations of possible mines.
Using multiple types of sensors to identify mines is critical.
Software can help identify mines once data is captured, highlighting the Office of Naval Research’s SORIDs system as “one of the more promising” tools.
Among the machines tested were the Army’s S-MET, a golf-cart-sized wheeled robot, and the EMAV, a car-sized tracked robot.
One Caterpillar bull-dozer worked to fill in a trench remotely, an example of how the 18th Airborne is using commercial tech to fill gaps.
Rayburn’s unit will deploy to the Joint Readiness Training Center this spring.
The Army has laid increasing importance on the value of using robots as it modernizes its forces.
