L3Harris took this concept in an innovative direction recently by attaching an advanced multirole electronic warfare (EW) capability to a T7 robot and demonstrating it at Vanguard 2024, an annual capstone experiment the U.S. Army hosts at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The combination successfully detected and defeated small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) with the CORVUS-RAVEN system as well as sensed, monitored and decoded electronic signals using the Individual CORVUS Node.
Vanguard allowed L3Harris and other industry innovators to present emerging technologies and future warfighting concepts to U.S. Army personnel in a relaxed and interactive setting. Recent lessons from Ukraine made this a topical and timely demonstration, driven by an increasing need to improve stand-off and protect mobile personnel from targeted artillery attacks.
Why Robots Help Enhance Counter-UAS Capabilities
The team pulled together the combination of CORVUS-RAVEN on a robot very quickly to meet the requirements of the experiment, coming to fruition in only six weeks.
“The idea behind the innovation was to leverage unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) such as T7 and T4 to provide stand-off delivery of EW effects,” said Dr. Paul Bosscher, Robotics Chief Engineer at L3Harris. “This means robots could be deployed to sense and detect signals a few kilometres ahead of troops, keeping them out of harm’s way.”
As the robots can be rapidly repositioned with EW effects turned on and off remotely, their own emitted signals can also be shut down and the robots relocated quickly to avoid becoming a target of artillery fire.
T7 and T4 in particular are a strong choice for such deployed EW scenarios, as both robots have aerospace-grade shielding to protect them against electromagnetic interference (EMI). This ensures they are able to carry CORVUS while it is transmitting without being impacted by its signals. Likewise, if CORVUS is actively attempting to detect and sense adversarial signals, the robots’ exceedingly low radiated emissions will not hinder its efforts.
This concept sparked additional potential use cases at the event, such as sending the UGVs to recover downed drones in the field during a mission or even using the robot’s arm as a launch vector for drones.
The Groundwork for Future Innovation
The experiment enabled the team to successfully demonstrate the potential of the T7 and T4’s deployed capabilities above and beyond explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) missions. Using readily available technologies, the concept showed how CORVUS’ EW capabilities could be operated through the T7’s network, expanding the future roadmap of the robots even further.
With world-class EW and robotics expertise, L3Harris is uniquely positioned to help customers shape and dominate future mission scenarios, from counter-small UAS to spectrum sensing and everything in-between.
