US Army will combine UAVs and UGVs (umanned ground vehicles) together at Ft Benning in 2007 to run first ever tests of a combined robotic assault.

The tests will use Yamaha R-Max UAVs as the UAV elements, together with DARPA supplied vehicles, type as yet undetermined.

The operational tests will take place in a simulated urban environment situated in the Mt McKinney environment of the Ft Benning, Ga reservation - an area of hills, says Ray Wall, Chief of Systems Integration Division at the Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate, Ft Eustis, Va..

The concept demonstration operation will look at mutual ‘feeding’ of data between air and ground vehicles, and will explore the integration of autonomous ‘behaviors’ by the vehicles, Wall says.

‘By that I mean you won’t have a single operator for a single UAV. These guys will work out what they need to do for themselves. Say one needs to replace a UAV shot down that was doing communications - then one of them will switch over and take over on its own.’

The Army is exploring a number of breakthrough concepts based on the use of CDAS (cognitive decision aiding systems) in the tests, which will also use helicopters in the airborne command and control role.

Source and more info: shephard