US Army funds $1.5M Purdue project on GPS-free AI robot teams

Purdue University has received $1.5 million in funding from the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory to develop autonomous AI-driven robotic teams capable of operating in GPS-denied, hostile environments. Led by Associate Professor Aniket Bera, the five-year project focuses on integrating aerial drones with ground vehicles to create coordinated air–ground systems that can scout, map, and navigate complex terrains without human intervention. These robots aim to provide enhanced situational awareness and battlefield intuition by sensing their surroundings, sharing information, and making collective decisions, thereby reducing risks to soldiers. The research is conducted within Purdue’s Intelligent Design for Exploration and Augmented Systems (IDEAS) Lab and utilizes the Hicks Robotics and Autonomy Testbed, a large facility equipped for both simulation and real-world testing of diverse robotic platforms. Building on prior single-agent navigation work, this project advances multi-agent collaboration, enabling robotic teams to function as intelligent scouts and navigators connected through an AI framework that fuses perception