BAE System stole the limelight on opening day at Land Forces 2024 in Melbourne with its new ATLAS, an acronym for Autonomous Tactical Light Armour System. The ATLAS is an 8×8 uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) developed in-house by BAE Systems Australia.
The company refers to the approximately 10-tonne-class vehicle as the Collaborative Combat Variant (CCV), with this sizeable UGV designed to support armoured forces and operate just as easily with main battle tanks or logistics vehicles.
Potential missions include advanced reconnaissance, armoured overwatch, flank protection and convoy escort.
To perform such missions, BAE Systems listed potential mission systems for the modular ATLAS CCV as medium- and large-calibre weapon turrets, automated mortars, antitank guided missiles, loitering munition launchers, and reconnaissance and surveillance sensors.
Employing an HMT Extenda chassis and drive module from Supacat, plus a Vantage uncrewed turret from Slovenian company Valhalla Turrets, the ATLAS on display at Land Forces featured a 25mm M242 Bushmaster cannon. Australia will soon have a surfeit of such weapons as its ASLAV fleet is decommissioned.
Paul Finch, project manager Land Autonomy at BAE Systems Australia, said the ATLAS CCV was completed in July. It had been rapidly developed following a contract awarded to Supacat in June 2023. Australia does not currently have a requirement for such a vehicle, so it has been designed with international demand in mind.
Work still needs to be done to qualify its various subsystems, train its software and incrementally release operating constraints, but Finch said the vehicle is around 90 percent complete. Its speedy development was greatly aided by work that BAE Systems Australia has performed on creating a fleet of optionally manned M113 vehicles.
Finch said the ATLAS CCV will compete in the medium UGV sector against the likes of the GDLS TRX, Textron Systems Ripsaw M5 and Milrem Type-X, all of which are tracked. However, the wheeled ATLAS has a huge advantage in terms of road mobility and speed.
Finch also highlighted its residual six tonnes of payload capacity, offering future growth potential and new mission modules.
BAE Systems did not release dimensions, but importantly it fits within a 20-foot ISO container for commercial or military shipping. Furthermore, six CCVs can fit inside a Boeing C-17 aircraft, or alternatively a combination of three CCVs and a Boxer.
The CCV’s autonomy system can accept real-time control from an operator (e,g, using Bluetooth or SATCOM), autonomous geometric path following, or path generation to avoid obstacles. The system is designed to reduce cognitive workload on an operator, who may be operating multiple vehicles simultaneously.
by Gordon Arthur, Melbourne
