The U.S. Army has informed the National Advanced Mobility Consortium that it will award other transaction agreements to QinetiQ North America and Textron (NYSE: TXT) to build two variants of a robotic combat vehicle.
The military service expects to finalize the OTAs in mid-February to procure four light RCV units from QinetiQ NA and four medium RCVs from Textron.
Both manufacturers are members of NAMC, which works with the U.S. government in efforts to accelerate the development and production of ground vehicle systems for the military.
The two awardees will provide the robotic platforms for a platoon-level trial that is scheduled to occur in March and for a company-level test by the end of next year.
In the announcement, the service branch noted it plans to use data from field and virtual experiments to decide on how it will proceed with the program in three years.
The Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center and Next Generation Combat Vehicles Cross Functional Team coordinate with NAMC on the contracting process.
