The U.S. Army is in the market for a robotank, but bandwidth issues are causing a headache in the military’s search, reports Defense One.
The report comes as companies from around the world unveiled robotic battle tanks at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference.
A new tank designed to operate as a “wingman” was unveiled Monday by a team led by Textron Systems – the Ripsaw M5 – is a 10-ton, unmanned battle wagon equipped with an autocannon and two drones of its own.
Still, the technical challenges are too big.
“There are some huge autonomy challenges,” said Jeff Langhout, who runs the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Ground Vehicles Systems Center.
“But I still think one of the greatest challenges we’re going to have is the network. On the ground, when you have robots wanting to talk to other robots, wanting to talk to ground vehicles and you go behind the hill, you go behind the rock, you go down in the gully; you’re in a city and you go around the corner of the building… Hey, we’re right here in Washington, D.C., how well does your cell phone work 100 percent of the time?” he asked.
The Army intends to work with the network it has until improved capability is implemented.
“You can’t just walk away from what you had because we invested a lot of money into the network,” said Gen. John “Mike” Murray, the commanding general of the Army Futures Command.
“And so thickening, augmenting, improving the network with commercial solutions, and in two-year increments so you can capture the very best technology you possibly can.”
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