Army shaking up new autonomy initiative, pivoting away from ISVs: Sources

WASHINGTON — The Army is looking to change up a program meant to add autonomous navigation to Infantry Support Vehicles, potentially by removing the vehicles from the equation altogether and letting industry provide other platforms to host the software, according to a senior defense official and an industry official. The service may also expand the program to new industry players, they said.

The senior official said exact details of the revamped plan are still being worked out, but the new Unmanned Systems (UxS) autonomy initiative “is changing for sure.”

“The focus will be mission autonomy” with the goal of letting companies bring in the best robots rather than trying to automate more ISVs, the defense official added.

One industry source close to the program told Breaking Defense that Army officials in Detroit on Tuesday confirmed that they were pivoting away from the ISV, while noting that the program was in a holding pattern until new acquisition guidance is signed out.

A spokesperson for the Army did not provide a comment for this report as of press time.

Neither the defense official nor the industry source provided a rationale for the change. However, a second industry official following the UxS program cited a few potential challenges with the initial plan that including “underlying deficiencies” that do not make the ISV ideal for taking it unmanned, potential safety risks and the low price point of the UxS contract awards.

In late August, the service tapped Forterra, Overland AI and Scout AI to receive a total of $15.5 million to “rapidly integrate” their commercial autonomy solution onto existing ISVs and deliver prototypes to Army soldiers for demonstration and evaluation in May 2026.

For now, those same three teams will proceed with the revamped indicative, the defense official explained, but the service plans to “make room” for more entrants.

The UxS shakeup comes as the Army is grappling with how to proceed with fielding a fleet of ground robots. After several false starts creating a Robotic Combat Vehicle, it abruptly opted not to proceed with a plan to award Textron Systems with a new RCV contract, and instead realign funding toward higher priorities. Then in August, the service released about taking another crack, but with plans to cap the per unit cost at $650,000.

“The Army seeks UGCRV [Unmanned Ground Commercial Robotic Vehicles] prototypes to meet emerging requirements in the form of desired characteristics in support of future operations on the battlefield,” a request for information obtained by Breaking Defense said. 

In addition to UGCRV and UxS, the Army has other autonomy initiatives underway including a potential deal to integrate commercial solutions into two platoons of ground robots under its Human Machine Integrated Formation initiative, and plans to make an autonomous launcher under the Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher (CAML) umbrella.