Off-road autonomy company Mach will integrate its software stack with BLADE's robotic submission for the Army's Infantry Last Tactical Mile (ILTM) effort ahead of an early 2027 operational assessment, the company announced in a new partnership agreement today. BLADE, which used to go by HDT Robotics, is one of six selected competing companies on the ILTM program with its Hunter WOLF 6x6 wheeled hybrid electric vehicle. Together the companies will offer the Army two autonomous prototypes, which are currently at Mach’s headquarters near Cedar Rapids, IA, Mach’s CEO and founder Colin Hurd told Inside Defense. “We have about 40 acres of testing ground and a large-scale shop and everything,” Hurd said, adding that the company is actively integrating its software onto the BLADE vehicles. Hurd thinks his team earned the partnership agreement because of his company’s modular autonomous stack, which takes up a “very small footprint” on unmanned ground vehicles, especially those that are drive-by-wire capable like the Hunter WOLF. Mach also brings to the table a “patent-pending” phased array radar, RadX, paired with stereo vision and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technologies to see in the dark, in smoke or in dust. The stack allows autonomous vehicles to operate in contested environments free of satellites, data links or servers. “It’s very inevitable that you will have to go through terrain that has vegetation taller than the vehicle,” Hurd said, given that the Hunter WOLF is not even four feet tall. “And so, to be able to do that and continue a mission in that environment, you have to have a sensor that can see through that type of vegetation.” Hurd’s company has a history of defense partnerships domestically and in Europe, to include combat engineering and counter-mine missions, as well as tactical wheeled vehicle and Navy airfield integrations, according to the announcement. Hunter WOLF recently ran through testing with the 82nd Airborne Division, and can carry up to 2,800 pounds and rescue casualties within contested battle zones. BLADE is simultaneously competing in a separate robotic logistics competition, which used to go by the name Project Sustainment. Project Sustainment is now known as the Autonomous Medium Logistics Platform (AMLP), Col. Ken Bernier, project manager for autonomous robotic capabilities (PM ARC), told Inside Defense last week.
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