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Over at Defense One, Patrick Tucker reports that General Dynamics Land Systems has teamed up with Kairos Autonomi to develop kits that “can turn virtually anything with wheels or tracks into a remote-controlled car.” It is part of a business strategy “to meet the U.S. Army’s expanding demand for unmanned ground vehicles”
Kairos kits costing less than $30,000 each have been installed on disposable vehicles to create moving targets for shooting practice. According to a spokesman, General Dynamics has also adapted them to LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicles and M1126 Strykers.
Tucker quotes Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (who else?), director of the U.S. Army’s Capabilities Integration Center, as saying that,
[G]etting remotely piloted and unmanned fighting vehicles out into the field is “something we really want to move forward on. What we want to do is get that kind of capability into soldiers’ hands early so we can refine the tactics, techniques and procedures, and then also consider enemy countermeasures and then build into the design of units that are autonomy enabled, build in the counter to those counters.”
According to General Dynamics Land Systems, the capability to turn any vehicle into a drone would give the U.S. an advantage over Russia, which has signaled its intent to automate versions of its T-14 Armata tank.
