Army on Accelerated Path to Buy as Many as 5,700 Robotic Mules
Finally something to help the infantry. Although I doubt these things would fit in areas I operated in (other than various deserts). It is the thought that counts.
That is the 10th MNT and the 101st ABN- I served in both units.The Army is on a path to field up to 5,700 squad multi-purpose equipment transport robotic vehicles in a winner-takes-all competition that may wrap up as early as 2019.
After more than a decade of experimenting with robotic mules designed to take the load off overburdened foot soldiers, the service is on an accelerated path to award a contract that will take about 15 months total, Mark Mazzara, program manager force projection’s robotics interoperability lead, said at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference Feb. 7.
The program is using an “other transaction authority” contracting vehicle to rapidly transition the technology from experiments to a program of record. OTAs are normally used to bring in nontraditional contractors to make prototypes.
“That is significantly faster than we have been able to do previous efforts,” Maj. Gen. John George, director for force development, Army G-8, told reporters. “That is the beauty of the new OTA process. If you have a competition though OTA, you can go to procurement and turn it into a program of record,” George said.
Changes in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act to how OTAs can be used make it easier to transition prototypes to programs of record. The Army wants to buy anywhere from 2,700 to 5,700 robotic mules for brigade combat teams depending on affordability and budgets, George said.
The Army is in the middle of selecting a contractor after bringing in seven vendors with eight different vehicles in 2017 to perform operational tests. Those were recently down-selected to four: Applied Research Associates-Polaris’ MRZR-X; General Dynamics Land Systems’ MUTT; Howe and Howe Technologies’ Punisher; and HDT Global’s Wolf.
The Army was awaiting the end of the latest continuing resolution to award each vendor a contract to build 20 prototypes each. That happened two days after George spoke when Congress reached a budget deal Feb. 9.
The 80 prototypes will go to Fort Drum, New York, and Fort Campbell, Kentucky.