SA E TECHNICAL PAPER SERIES Tank Automation for Future Combat Vehicles Bruce E. Brendle, Jr. US Army Tank-Automotive Armaments Command The Engineering Society mA =For Advancing Mobility and Sea Air and Space, International Congress & Exposition Detroit, Michigan February 26-29,1996 -- -- 400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale,-PA 1 5096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (41 2)776-4841 Fax:(412)776-5760 Downloaded from SAE International by Imperial College London, Monday, September 24, 2018SAE routinely stocks printed papers for a period of three years following date of publication. Direct your orders to SAE Customer Sales and Satisfaction Department. Quantity reprint rates can be obtained from the Customer Sales and Satisfaction Department. To request permission to reprint a technical paper or permission to use copyrighted SAE publications in other works, contact the SAE Publications Group. All SAE papers, standards, and selected books are abstracted and indexed in the Global Mobility Database. Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions will be printed with the paper if it is published in SAE Transactions. For permission to publish this paper in full or in part, contact the SAE Publications Group. Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication through SAE should send the manuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE. Printed in USA 95-1 826 Downloaded from SAE International by Imperial College London, Monday, September 24, 2018Tank Automation for Future Combat Vehicles ABSTRACT Advanced technologies and automated crew functions will be available for the next generation of combat vehicles. These technologies promise to reduce the soldier's workload while enhancing his ability to move, shoot, communicate, and survive on the battlefield. An integral component toward reaching this goal is an interface which allows the solider to both quickly assimilate information generated by the technologies and efficiently interface to the technologies. INTRODUCTION The demands of the modem battlefield are driving the Army toward combat vehicles that have a level of technological sophistication previously seen only in fighter jets and attack helicopters. On the future battlefield, soldiers will be required to operate their vehicles continuously for up to 96 hours and operate equally effectively during the day, at night, and under all weather conditions. To help the soldier meet this challenge, state-of-the-art sensors and advanced technologies are being added to future combat vehicle designs. The Army is also moving toward a digitized battlefield that will provide each soldier with a current picture of the battlefield. However, as digitized information and individual technologies are becoming mature enough to be tested in vehicles, it has become evident that the data generated from these technologies can overload the soldier, physically, visually, auditorially, and cognitively. The Army is working to overcome this problem by developing an integrated soldier-machine interface that allows the soldier to utilize the advanced technologies efficiently. To achieve this, future crew stations are being designed around the crewman in order to best integrate the soldier and the vehicle. This philosophy of designing the crew station around the soldier should result in enhanced crew performance and vehicles that exhibit greater performance and that are easier to operate even though the internal vehicle systems are in themselves more complex. Bruce E. Brendle, Jr. US Army Tank-Automotive Armaments Command In a program called Crewman's Associate, the Army is investigating advanced technology crewstations that integrate technologies available at tw