Army mulls introducing robot platoon into armored brigades | 27 March 2024 | The Army may introduce a drone and robotics platoon into its armored brigade combat teams, an Army leader announced Tuesday at the AUSA Global Force conference. A proposal to stand up the new type of platoon has been sent to the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, for eventual inclusion in an update to the service's force design, said Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team. "Those force design updates are working their way through the system now," he said. The platoons would be known as robotic and autonomous systems, or "RAS," platoons. If implemented Army-wide, the new platoons would lead to a dramatic increase in the use of robotic systems, and ground robots in particular.