U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Charles Cartwright says there are currently 20 Honeywell-made Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) deployed with a Stryker brigade combat team in Iraq, with plans to have a total of 32 there by the end of November.

Cartwright made the announcement during an Army briefing on the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington on Oct. 8.

Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, added that there are also plans for the Land Warrior system, which is about to deploy to Iraq for a second time with a Stryker Brigade Combat Team, to be “connected to FCS ... to help the dismounted soldier be connected to the network.” He stressed that this is still conceptual, but it is part of “where we’re going with our Future Combat Systems-enabled Army.”

Vane was responding to a question about where FCS is headed and how it will link up its communications suite to other Army communications programs.

Regarding how helpful the testing of FCS technologies at Ft. Bliss, Texas, has been to the overall health of the program, Cartwright said “the SUGV [small, unmanned ground vehicle] in the last year and a half has gone through three major design changes based on the feedback we’re getting directly from the soldiers.”

FCS as a whole continues to undergo testing, with spinouts – like the MAV, and sometime in 2009, unmanned ground sensors – coming online when the technologies are mature enough. In a separate briefing, Gregg Martin, Boeing vice president and FCS program manager, said that 2009 “is all about detailed design, ’10 is all about initial integration and ’11 is all about formal qualification testing.”

Photo: US Army