US Army tests autonomous mass mine-laying

The U.S. Army has successfully tested an autonomous version of its Volcano mine-laying system, which can blanket approximately 32 acres with up to 960 mines without a human driver. During demonstrations at Camp Grayling, Michigan, soldiers remotely fired the Autonomous Volcano for the first time and later had it lay two separate minefields without human assistance. The system pairs the Army's decades-old M139 Volcano dispenser with a driverless Palletized Load System truck, designed to keep combat engineers out of danger. The autonomous system also automatically logs locations and uploads them to the Army's shared battlefield map. The project was developed jointly by the U.S. and United Kingdom, with defense contractor Forterra integrating the dispenser onto the automatic vehicle. The Army plans to test the system in a series of realistic battlefield scenarios later this month, as part of a broader effort to modernize legacy equipment with emerging technology, including unmanned aerial systems and autonomous vehicles for other military tasks.