Eyeing a new autonomous launcher prototyping initiative, Army checking out industry options

The US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center and Ground Vehicle Systems Center’s combined Autonomous Multi-domain Launcher team conducted a live fire of a Reduced Range Practice Rocket fired from the AML at Yuma Proving Ground in April 2024. (US Army photo)

WASHINGTON — US Army leaders are looking at different autonomous launchers as they eye a possible prototyping competition and grapple with the right mix of crewed and uncrewed systems for the future force, according to a one-star general helping to lead the charge.

After a series of studies and projections into surface-to-surface fires threats through 2035, the service believes it is facing “deficits” in three categories — range, capacity and survivability — if it doesn’t “rectify our course,” said Long-Range Precision Fires Cross Functional Team leader Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks.

“Achieving local fire superiority starts with surface-to-surface parity,” he explained during a Jan. 29 interview with Breaking Defense.

“Once we achieve that local fire superiority with surface-to-surface [and] surface-to air, then we can set the right conditions to bring in our air component,” Crooks later added.

But to achieve that vision and address those perceived deficits, the service has devised a three-pronged approach: ammunition innovation; scaling launched effects plans; and introducing “mature or existing platforms” and augmenting them with autonomous systems.

Work on all three lines of effort are underway, and for that third bucket, it includes penning new requirements for autonomous launchers that could lead to an eventual prototyping competition. 

That potential move comes as the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) has spent years developing its own Autonomous Multi-domain Launcher (AML), an uncrewed M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. But as an internal development effort, the command is not in a position to produce enough AMLs for soldiers to test out and feed the requirements and acquisition decision cycle.

“I don’t see DEVCOM as being the way to introduce larger numbers into formations in the near future: That will be how we leverage industry,” Crooks said. “But it starts with refining that requirement, which we’re in the process of [doing].”

The next step, he explained, is inking an abbreviated capability development document (A-CDD) that essentially validates the need for a capability and could lead to a competitive rapid prototyping competition.

While work on AML will be factored into that requirements process, so will observations from demos with alternative autonomous launchers being pitched by industry and set to be demoed at events like the upcoming Project Convergence Capstone 5 event.

“This is not all about not replacing humans with robots but how do you make existing formations more lethal with autonomous systems,” he said.

While service priorities could change with new Army civilian leadership, such a future launcher may mean the service is not constrained by a 13-foot pod and could instead fire a new “Affordable High-Speed Strike” missile slated for science and technology development in fiscal 2026. (The service previously referred to that weapon as the Precision Strike Missile Increment 5.)

“We’re interested to see what we can achieve in terms of range, lethality on a surface fired missile that might be larger than 13 feet,” Crooks said. 

The influencers

With autonomy ground platforms still in the early days, Army leaders are still answering questions about just how those weapons will fit into formations and how soldiers will use them. For Crooks and the long-range fires community, they are planning to home in on cognitive load challenges associated with pairing up crewed systems and uncrewed systems at this year’s Project Convergence event.

“We don’t know yet what a crewed system can accomplish in terms of its own tasks that we expect of it today … receive the mission, fire, resupply, all those associated tasks, and how much of that can they do and also control an autonomous system simultaneously,” Crooks said.

“It could be one-to-one. It could be one-to-N. We don’t know what that is yet,” he added.

While he didn’t dive into the specific unmanned launchers at the event to help answer those questions, the AML is expected to be on hand, potentially alongside two launchers under development by different industry teams. Lockheed Martin has been touting one such new launcher, and Raytheon confirmed it is working another one that will be at the Army event. 

“Integration of autonomous vehicles into the military can lead to a future where operations are faster, safer and more adaptable,” Brian Burton, vice president of Precision Fires and Maneuver at Raytheon, wrote in a statement to Breaking Defense. “Our innovative approach with multiple partners helps bring a next-gen solution that increases operational efficiency, crosses difficult terrain, enhances mission survivability and reduces risk to soldiers.”

Crooks’s requirements team has also been closely following US Marine Corps progress on the smaller Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires (ROGUE Fires), a program ripe for “collaboration,” he said. 

ROGUE Fires integrates the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — a mountable, ground-based anti-ship missile launcher with two Naval Strike Missiles — onto the 2.5-ton class Joint Light Tactical Vehicle chassis instead of the five-ton Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) platform used for the AML.

The USMC is also ramping up the weapon’s level of autonomy, announcing last month a new $30 million investment in autonomous navigation in the form of tech firm Forterra’s AutoDrive system.

“We think [AML] could be complimentary in some ways to what the Marine Corps is doing,” Crooks said, noting that some of the autonomous launchers share the same autonomy stack.

“So, that commonality might be inherent, but we’re going to make sure, as we develop requirements … we’ve got to make sure that those are specified in the requirements and that the autonomy is very compatible,” the one-star general added.