Drone tank that could soon lead US troops into battle

It is one of the most hi-tech tanks ever created - and doesn't even need a driver. The US Army has revealed it has been testing the vehicle, known as Ripsaw. The 'drone tank' is controlled remotely, and can reload itself and even change weapons at the touch of a button. Army bosses say it could one day lead US troops in battle. The unmanned vehicle, though still in development, has been tested and is capable of driving up to 1 kilometer ahead of various types of formations, Bob Testa of the Remote Weapons Branch of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center said.  'We cut the copper cable and made it wireless so that the vehicle and weapon can both be driven remotely,' said Testa, explaining how it works. During tests, the Ripsaw was followed by an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.  Trailing up to a kilometer behind, the M113 was driven by a Soldier.  Another Soldier, in the vehicle, would control the Ripsaw and its weapon wirelessly, Testa said. Rather than reinvent something, Testa said his team selected a vehicle already produced by Howe and Howe Technologies, since it had remote driving capabilities. In 2009, 'Popular Science' magazine named the Ripsaw the invention of the year, so the technology has been around for a while. Testa and his team converted the vehicle for Army use.   They added a Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station, or CROWS. CROWS has been used in combat as far back as 2004 in Iraq. It allows a Soldier inside a tank, Humvee, Stryker or any other vehicle to fire his weapon safely from inside the armor-protected vehicle. In other words, he does not have to stick his head out to see to fire.  Cameras and range finders on CROWS see for him and the system can tilt and swivel the weapon as needed. While that capability probably resulted in a lot of saved lives, the Soldier inside the vehicle could still be killed or injured from a large enemy mine or projectile.  So Testa's team took the remotely-operated system one step further.  They completely removed the Soldier from the vehicle. The weakness of the entire system was the weapon itself, he said, meaning the M2 .50-caliber machine gun, Mk19 40-mm automatic grenade machine gun, M240B 7.62 mm machine gun, M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or any number of other weapons that can be mounted in CROWS. What Testa meant by weakness is that those weapons still required a trigger finger to fire. However, the team then designed a self firing weapon.  ARDEC developed the Advanced Remote Armament System, or ARAS, a gun that self-loads its own ammunition and even can swap out various types of ammunition, such as lethal and non-lethal, in just a few seconds, he said. The Ripsaw's speed and mobility is such that it can keep pace with normal operations tempo, he said.  While it is technically feasible to go one step further and make the whole system robotic,meaning fully autonomous, Testa said that would not happen. The Ripsaw and its ARAS are 'tele-operated,' he said.  That means a Soldier remotely drives it and operates and fires the weapon.  Army leaders have repeatedly said that 'war is a human endeavor' and robots will never replace Soldiers, he said. Besides the ethical reason, Department of Defense Directive 3000.09 'Autonomy in Weapon Systems,' published in November 2012, prohibits robots from making life and death decisions without a human in control.  While a lot of experimentation and testing has occurred, Testa said formal certification testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, would still be required to move forward.  Also needed will be a 'firm requirement' from the Army to move ahead past the development phase. Soldiers themselves would need proper training and indoctrination with regard to using unmanned platforms on the battlefield, he said.