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.
On Thursday following the initial publication of this report, a spokesperson for the Army’s Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems also confirmed the change and provided some additional details the revamp.
“Rather than holding firm in the face of changing environments we want to ensure we are continuously evaluating opportunities and driving change,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Based on the changing technology environment and the growing autonomy landscape the decision was made to allow the UxS vendors to select their preferred robotic platforms rather than using the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) as a surrogate.”
Under the new plan, the spokesperson added, each vendor will provide their own surrogate mobility platform, and the service will assess autonomy, directly against the mission instead of connections to middleware.
“Our next challenge will be determining the right autonomy C2 [command and control] layer to connect autonomy to NGC2 [Next Generation C2],” the spokesperson said. “The objective of the Unmanned Systems (UxS) autonomy project remains unchanged; rapidly integrate and deliver commercial autonomous mobility into Army Formations.”
Neither the defense official, Army spokesperson nor the industry source provided information on why the Army changed course so close to the contract award. 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.
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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 new details 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.
This article was updated on Sept. 25, 2025, at 11:30am ET to include new information provided by the Army’s Program Executive Office for Ground Combat System.