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The U.S. Army has been trying to determine when and how it will use armed ground robots on the battlefield. Within its efforts, a Javelin missile was fired using a Kongsberg remote launcher on an unmanned ground vehicle. 

The Titan unmanned ground vehicle was built by Qinetiq North America and Estonian company Milrem Robotics. The mid-June demonstration was carried out by a Raytheon and Lockheed Martin team.

Raytheon began putting together the team roughly a year ago, selecting a Milrem UGV for its ability to accept a wide variety of payloads and because of its innovative, clean design. The battle tested-Kongsberg remote launcher — the Protector — was selected as well.

The demonstration was targeted for the U.S. Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command’s efforts to examine robotics as a force multiplier.

The US Army is in the nascent stage of identifying how to use ground robots in combat, and so a system like that will show the service more regarding how such systems can be deployed and what requirements are necessary to shape future programs, according to defensenews.com.

The team’s demonstration used a weapon system already in the Army’s inventory. The system used a secure radio frequency link to the robot during the demonstration, transmitting and receiving video from the robot and the Kongsberg fire control. In the case of the system, a man is always in the loop, as the robot is not autonomous and must be remotely operated.