Out in the rocky ridges of the Mojave Desert, US soldiers recently let a ground robot take a run at logistics missions traditionally done by humans.
The uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) used is called NOMAD and is manufactured by Hendrick Technical Solutions. Soldiers told Business Insider that robots like this help keep troops out of harm’s way, but such systems are not without their limitations.
During the Project Convergence Capstone exercise at Fort Irwin in California last month, almost 10,000 soldiers gathered to experiment with new technologies while fighting through simulated combat. While a majority of the drones involved were uncrewed aerial vehicles, there were some ground drones being tested and used in and around the fight.
Soldiers used the NOMAD robot primarily for resupply missions, though they have the potential for involvement in medical operations, such as transporting injured personnel. “We’ve used it probably 12 to 13 times,” Sgt. 1st Class Alex Alcantar told Business Insider, “and it’s extremely, extremely useful.”
Alcantar said that the NOMAD reduced the risk to soldiers who might otherwise have had to run these missions by pushing supplies forward “with minimal force being exposed.” The NOMAD system can be operated by one person via a tablet, which displays the camera view and includes controls.
During the exercise, soldiers said the NOMAD was easy to load supplies onto, taking five minutes or less to set up and deploy. They did encounter some challenges with the system, though. Like a majority of the Army’s systems and technologies at the exercise, the NOMAD was affected by the desert heat.
“Because of the heat, it’s turning that little tablet screen off, or it’s making it glitch,” Alcantar said, adding that he’d figured out a workaround by putting the tablet on ice for a few seconds. Other soldiers said they’d come up with similar solutions for keeping their drones and devices cool.
The terrain, specifically the ridges scattered about the desert, impacted operations as well, reducing the NOMAD’s range of around 600 meters to about 200 meters. And unlike some uncrewed systems, there’s no “return home” feature, meaning that soldiers have to manually retrieve the drones if the connection drops.
To transport the NOMAD, soldiers loaded the drone into a trailer connected to a vehicle. The Army-provided trailer showed wear from the robot’s continued deployment. The ramps on the trailer, in particular, showed signs of damage. A complete breakdown of the ramps could leave soldiers unable to use the NOMAD, but even a partial failure can cause problems, soldiers shared.
In one incident, they said, a ramp gave out, and the bot flipped onto its side. Soldiers were able to right it without any damage to the system, but the situation had made them more careful about using it. The manufacturer didn’t respond to Business Insider’s queries on the robot’s performance.
The soldiers testing drones and other technologies at the exercise were gathering feedback on how the systems performed for the Army and vendors to review. Army leaders said that a main point of the training was to see how technologies performed in extreme conditions and then use feedback to make improvements.
The US Army has long been looking at ground drones as robotic mules, though these initiatives have taken on new urgency as lessons from other conflicts come in. Ukraine has seen success in using UGVs to carry supplies and ammunition to soldiers instead of relying on humans.
For US soldiers, new technology is fundamentally changing aspects of how they do their jobs, but it’s also presenting a number of challenges that they are having to navigate on the fly, especially in more punishing weather conditions. The aim, though, is that peacetime experimentation will ultimately yield sufficient readiness should a real war come.
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