Page 91 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep-Oct 2022

and K/10/AS10 system. Minister Eom told ADM that Korea is already work- ing to incorporate greater autonomy into the K9 design, with the aim of reduc- ing the crew from five to two personnel. ADM also understands that DAPA’s work into increasing autonomy of the AARV is again of great interest to Army, as it looks to solving logistics problems with the technology.
“We are completely open to expanded cooperation with Australia in unmanned technologies,” Minister Eom said. “If Aus- tralia is willing to expand cooperation, then it is more than welcome.”
HDA is already working with Canberra- based ECLIPS Engineering and Army’s Robotic and Autonomous Systems Imple- mentation & Coordination Office (RICO) on the concept of autonomously offload- ing ammunition from Army’s HX77 trucks into the AS10 AARV. Hanwha is also looking at a wider solution, poten- tially including development of an autono- mous AS10, known as AX10.
“We’re still working with the customer to define the exact requirements, but we view this as not just something applicable to the Australian customer, but poten- tially the creation of an Australian global product,” HDA’s Tim Pickford comment- ed about the AX10 program.
“That work will be done in Australia (and) we’ve signed a range of MoUs with Australian research and development in- stitutions to get that AX10 work moving forward.”
From Army’s perspective, BRIG King says autonomy promises to provide two main advantages: one is to remove people from high threat environments and the second is to lessen the need for human resources to be allocated.
“Things such as the work ECLIPS is do- ing in the re-arming and reloading piece for me is an opportunity to remove people from the dirty, dull and dangerous jobs that they have done in the past, into roles such as littoral manoeuvre, where we need a manned capability,” BRIG King explains.
Coupled with the work being under- taken by RICO on a ‘Leader-Follower’ autonomous solution for Army’s logistics convoys, the work being done on the au- tomatic resupply of the AS10 – and pos- sibly even a fully-autonomous AX10 in the future – could potentially lead to an autonomous AS9 resupply solution that is end-to end. ■
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