The Army on Thursday released the initial acquisition timeline for its Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program that will culminate in a prototype contract award in late November.
Army officials also outlined plans to hold a series of demonstration days in May to inform final prototype requirements ahead of a planned request for white papers on July 29.
RCV is an Army Next-Generation Combat Vehicle effort to find a platform that enables AI-assisted lethality, manned-unmanned teaming capabilities, cyber and electromagnetic activities and expanded robotic warfighter function.
In January, the Army released its development plan for RCV, which affirmed officials would rigorously test prototypes to inform a final “decisive lethality decision point” in fiscal year 2023, and funding priorities for the vehicle’s light, medium and heavy variants (Defense Daily, Jan. 22).
Demonstration days for RCV will be held between May 13- 17.
White papers will be due to the Army be Aug. 23, with a downselect on several potential designs set for Sept. 17.
Select vendors will then have a chance to pitch their RCV concepts during a series of meetings between Sept. 23-27, which will then result in another downselect in mid-October.
A final prototype contract award, to likely deliver four test vehicles, will then arrive on Nov. 22.
Endeavor Robotics has teamed with Textron [TXT] to work on a potential RCV offering. FLIR Systems [FLIR] announced plans on Monday to acquire Endeavor (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).