DARPA, the Pentagon's research arm, has shown that a pack of four autonomous ground vehicles can scout terrain, find simulated enemies and take up positions, with a human deciding whether anything gets fired.
The exercise took place in mid-October at the St. Vith Range at Fort Knox, Kentucky. European allies asked for it, DARPA said, and the site was chosen because its landscape resembles the European theater. An operator received a tip about a simulated threat plus satellite imagery, then sent the pack out. One unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) went ahead to scout while the other three waited. The rest followed to provide cover and support. A simulated rocket was fired at a target about 300 yards from the pack, and the last vehicle moved up over a ridge to assess the scene. Three of the four carried drones.
The work belongs to DARPA's Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency program, known as RACER. After five years, DARPA technical advisor Jason Gregory said, the vehicles can be given tasks instead of being driven by hand, and they move off-road at least as fast as a human driver. "All the mobility, all the movement, all the detections, all of that is autonomous," he said. "But they don't pull the trigger until a human says pull the trigger."
That split is the real story. Off-road driving was the hard engineering problem, and the weapons are bolt-on payloads for what a technician called "super modular platforms." The human check is a policy choice layered on top, and it leans on the machines' detections. If the software decides what the operator sees, scrutiny will land on how well it spots targets as much as on who presses the button.
DARPA's own blog says the packs are ready for other missions, including food, ammunition and supply logistics, a far less contested use. More tests are scheduled for December, this time with serving soldiers. Their reactions will show whether a system that impresses its builders holds up with the people who have to rely on it.