10 October 2024
From commanding armoured vehicles in land combat to operating emerging technology, robotics and autonomous systems, soldiers from the 1st Armoured Regiment (1 Armd Regt) – Army’s full-time experimentation unit – completed their first major activity last month.
The land autonomous systems and teaming demonstration showcased their collaboration with Australian industry, the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Implementation and Coordination Office (RICO) and the Army's Battle Lab in autonomous command-and-control systems, robots, uncrewed autonomous vehicles, uncrewed aerial systems and more.
Commanding Officer 1 Armd Regt, Lieutenant Colonel Jake Penley, said the demonstration was an important step in adapting Army to meet emerging threats.
“It is a demonstration, a visualisation activity, that allows our senior leaders to understand how emerging technology can value-add to the battlefield whilst keeping the human face of battle and the human in the loop,” he said.
“It allows us to remove people from the direct line of contact and use emerging technology, robotics and autonomous systems to best effect to increase our lethality.”
Supported by about 20 companies and 90 staff at Puckapunyal Military Area, the demonstration tested sovereign autonomy teaming kill web (S-ATKW) and technology-scaled combined arms team (TSCAT).
RICO director Lieutenant Colonel Adam Hepworth said the S-ATKW featured autonomous teaming with UAS executing an autonomous reconnaissance and strike mission. The TSCAT featured live-fire counter small UAS against multiple small UAS threats and ground combat tasks.
“The S-ATKW serial focused on the use of AI and robotic and autonomous systems within a sovereign autonomy teaming construct,” he said.
“A range of uncrewed aerial systems swarmed together to deliver battlefield effects against a range of different targets.
“The TSCAT activity focused on the human machine integration relationship between soldiers of the 1st Armoured Regiment, as well as a range of different technologies that are both new to warfare and new to the Australian Army.”
1 Armd Regt’s Trooper Nicholas Casa's role centred on the latter. Trooper Casa operated an optionally crewed combat vehicle and drove one of the ‘mothership armoured vehicles’.
“It has been a massive learning curve in a good way for me,” he said.
“I feel like I've been able to put my skills to the test a lot more than usual. When you start getting into the maintaining and troubleshooting, that's when it starts to get more difficult, but honestly, that's the part I like the most.”
As part of the first concept testing, 1 Armd crew commander Lance Corporal Zachary Szecko took on the role of R400 gunner using a remote weapon system, with his sights set firmly on drones.
“Once we identify the drone, we go through the processes, lock onto the drone and then engage – we hit three out of the five,” he said.
“We would have done better, but we had a couple of stoppages on the guns. Being part of Army's experimental unit, it's good to make the mistakes so we can learn from them.”
Lieutenant Colonel Penley said the opportunity to be part of such a quick pivot was grasped with both hands.
“It's a unique opportunity afforded to the men and women of 1st Armoured Regiment; it's not afforded to people of other units within the Army,” he said.
“So it's a fantastic opportunity for them to get their hands on emerging technology, do what they do best and employ it on the battlefield.
“We will focus the next few years on experimentation and emerging technology. It's what the Army requires us to do. It's our task and purpose and we're going to approach it as such.”
