The high-tech future for the Army

The next wave will include a lot more robots and drones, and they'll be smarter and more autonomous than the current gear. They'll communicate better with each other and do more and more of the dangerous legwork now done by flesh-and-blood soldiers, and some of them will be as small as insects. Meanwhile, U.S. forces will start to field so-called directed-energy weapons: lasers that can shoot down incoming artillery rounds, and less-than-lethal "heat rays" designed to disperse crowds. With a development schedule stretching well into the next decade--aims for a complete package of fully networked and brand-new gear ranging from unattended ground sensors to manned and unmanned vehicles, common components and a common operating environment, battle command software, next-generation communications systems and more. As it stands, the Army in July set out its schedule for the first FCS spinouts--a "low-rate initial production effort"--of some gear, including ground mobile radio technology and the non-line-of-sight cannon, or NLOS-C.