The US Army is integrating several anti-tank weapon systems into its robotic platforms to destroy enemy armored vehicles and help protect manned assets from enemy fire.
According to The National Interest, the service recently demonstrated its robotic combat vehicles armed with Javelin anti-tank missiles, cannons, grenade launchers, and crew-served weapons.
“We shot a Javelin,” Army Futures Command director Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman told the American magazine. “It’s the shakeout testing and the safety testing so you can conduct live fire with soldiers and make sure that it is safe.”
The army stated that it would use artificial intelligence to help anti-tank weapons find, identify, and track enemy tanks before targeting them.
Additionally, personnel will be able to escape enemy tanks in battle since the robotic platform is lighter and faster than most manned vehicles.
Although anti-tank weapons are being integrated into robotic combat vehicles, the army clarified that all decisions concerning the use of lethal force will still be made by humans.
Potential Air Defense Support
All weapons on the army’s robotic combat vehicles feature advanced capabilities including a state-of-the-art sensor suite designed to see targets at longer ranges.
The platform has an advanced computing system that helps process incoming information, which human decision-makers will use. This also allows the vehicle to operate as a data node that sends information to nearby assets.
With such capabilities, Coffman believes that armed robots could support air-defense missions if they could also be integrated with Hellfire or Stinger missile systems.
“I think anything is possible. If it is in the inventory, you can put it on the robot,” he said.