The Army is set to produce the Leader-Follower unmanned driving capability by 2024, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel Allyn said Thursday.

Allyn described Leader-Follower as a system with a pallet loading a fleet of vehicles that provides automated driving for up to four follow-on vehicles for every one manned vehicle. Allyn, talking about Leader-Follower at the Unmanned Systems Defense conference in Arlington, Va., said future unmanned systems must help sustain the force with increased distribution, throughput and efficiency and must be capable of moving materiel to the battlefield while providing commanders with a broad array of distribution options.

Oshkosh developed its TerraMax technology for autonomous convoy operations. Photo: Oshkosh.
Oshkosh developed its TerraMax technology for autonomous convoy operations. Photo: Oshkosh.

The Army last week performed a Leader-Follower demonstration at Fort Bliss, Texas, according to a service statement. Five Palletized Loading System (PLS) vehicles were equipped with Leader-Follower capability and two additional Humvees were equipped as “command” vehicles.

Leader-Follower vehicles are equipped with features normally found on high-end passenger vehicles like collision-mitigation braking, lane-changing assist, backup warning and backup-assist. The system also notifies drivers to danger with visual and audio alerts. If the driver doesn’t take action, the system can apply brakes and steer to avoid accidents. Defense companies such as Oshkosh [OSK] are already developing and demonstrating the Leader-Follower capability (Defense Daily, March 30).

Allyn also laid out the Army’s four objectives, in addition to Leader-Follower, for unmanned systems moving forward. First, he said, these systems must increase the service’s situational awareness, going where manned systems cannot and, thus, increasing standoff survivability and agility for soldiers and units.

Secondly, systems must lighten solders’ physical and cognitive loads as heavy loads increase fatigue and limit commanders’ options in both space and duration. Allyn said the Army is focused on capabilities like the squad and multipurpose equipment transport, an unmanned system capable of carrying a squad’s worth of equipment, life support and combat gear.

Allyn said future unmanned systems must also facilitate movement and maneuver, which he called the Army’s core business. To support this effort, Allyn said the Army is laying the groundwork for scalable control, which will allow unmanned operators and recovery teams to operate away from their supportive units and transfer control of systems, once in flight, to other soldiers and units in need of assistance. He said this will allow ground combat units to positively control unmanned assets, prioritizing efforts as needed.

Finally, Allyn said future unmanned systems must help protect the force. He used as an example unmanned systems that are used regularly by explosive ordnance disposal teams to assess integrity of explosives. Allyn said, in the future, a route clearance and interrogation system will provide enough clearance teams an unmanned, semi-automated capability to interrogate, excavate and classify deeply-buried improvised explosive devices (IED). Allyn said this system will increase soldiers’ standoff and their ability to detect and neutralize IED threats.