WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M.— Testers from Fort Hood's U.S. Army Operational Test Command completed a Limited User Test the last week of September on equipment and technology that has drawn the attention of the Army's senior leadership.

Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team systems include the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, the Class 1 Unmanned Aerial System, the Network Integration Kit and two types of unattended ground sensors.

These systems are designed to do everything from providing situational awareness for force protection to target acquisition to network connectivity, according to briefing documents.

Data harvested during the tests will be used to assess the effectiveness, suitability and survivability of the equipment, according to USAOTC's Maneuver Test Directorate director Col. Steve Duke.

Duke said data is collected in three categories: Performance, manpower/personnel integration (MANPRINT) and reliability/availability/maintainability (RAM).

"We collect this via instrumentation, soldier surveys and observer controller observations," Duke said.

"We had more than fifteen hundred soldiers, DA civilians and contractors participating in this test."

Test officers and support personnel, along with soldiers from the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, the U.S. Army Evaluation Task Force and Fort Bliss' 1st Armored Division, worked together to build test scenarios that were as "operationally accurate and realistic as possible," Duke said.

Soldiers from the 5th Brigade, 1st Armored Division conducted attack, defend and stability missions over desert, mountainous and urban terrain at White Sands Missile Range, offering two simulated Afghan villages encompassing both mountains and caves. White Sands was selected as the test site because of its robust operational environment, Duke said.

Soldiers who had spent the last six weeks dressing like insurgents and living in the two villages provided the opposing forces component of the test scenarios.