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American Rheinmetall to Lead U.S. Army's Project Sustainment with Hybrid Autonomous UGVs
Defense Mobility

American Rheinmetall to Lead U.S. Army's Project Sustainment with Hybrid Autonomous UGVs

By Heavy-shift 3 min read
American Rheinmetall to Lead U.S. Army's Project Sustainment with Hybrid Autonomous UGVs
American Rheinmetall to Lead U.S. Army's Project Sustainment with Hybrid Autonomous UGVs

American Rheinmetall to Lead U.S. Army's Project Sustainment with Hybrid Autonomous UGVs

American Rheinmetall has been awarded an 18-month U.S. Army contract for Project Sustainment, an effort to bring autonomous load-handling and transport capability to the service's tactical logistics fleet. The award, announced on 31 July, runs through the National Advanced Mobility Consortium (NAMC) and positions American Rheinmetall as prime contractor for a next-generation uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) program.

What Project Sustainment Entails

Under the contract, American Rheinmetall will deliver hybrid-powered, autonomous UGVs designed to support company-sized sustainment missions. The vehicles will transport supplies to and from the forward line of troops without crew aboard — reducing soldier exposure in contested environments while keeping ammunition, fuel, water and rations moving at the tempo the unit needs.

The program's emphasis spans autonomy, commerciality and hybrid power integration, with the Army explicitly asking for features that make the robot easier to operate. That is where voice control comes in.

A Teamed Effort

American Rheinmetall is executing Project Sustainment with three partners:

  • Harbinger, the California-based commercial EV/hybrid manufacturer, supplies the autonomy-ready hybrid vehicle platform and the commercial production pathway that keeps cost and scale realistic.
  • Forterra provides the autonomy stack that lets the vehicles operate with minimal human intervention in contested environments.
  • Primordial Labs contributes Anura, its voice-controlled human-machine interface. Anura distills commander's intent into natural language commands, enabling heads-up, hands-free operation, cutting cognitive burden and accelerating training timelines — in effect scaling the number of robots a single soldier can direct.

Building on the Harbinger Partnership

The award is the first concrete program to emerge from the partnership American Rheinmetall and Harbinger announced in May 2026, when the two companies agreed to jointly develop a family of robotic and uncrewed ground vehicles for U.S. defense priorities. Harbinger's platform is designed around a range-extended hybrid powertrain, and the military payoffs are direct: silent watch capability, a reduced thermal and acoustic signature, and longer mission endurance than a pure battery or pure diesel approach. For logistics vehicles that must loiter near the front line or operate at night, that combination is what makes the hybrid architecture attractive to the Army.

Fits the Army's Broader Autonomy Push

Project Sustainment slots into a wider U.S. Army modernization effort around autonomous logistics. Under the Ground Expeditionary Autonomous Retrofit System (GEARS) project, run with the Defense Innovation Unit, the Army is retrofitting Palletized Load System trucks with autonomous navigation kits under the Autonomous Transport Vehicle System (ATV-S) program. Rheinmetall is also in the running for the Common Tactical Truck (CTT) program alongside GM Defense, offering the HX3 — a competition that will shape the Army's wheeled logistics fleet for decades.

The logic across all these programs is the same: keep soldiers out of the most dangerous supply legs, and let a smaller crew manage a larger logistics footprint.

What's Next

The contract includes the potential for follow-on orders as the Army evolves its autonomous logistics fleet. Work will be conducted across U.S. facilities and test ranges.

"This award expands American Rheinmetall's growing portfolio of uncrewed ground systems within the U.S. market and reinforces our position as a leader in ground robotics and autonomous technologies," said Jim Schirmer, VP of Sales & Marketing at American Rheinmetall. "Project Sustainment directly supports the Army's modernization priorities by delivering autonomous load-handling and transport capabilities that increase readiness and reduce the burden on Soldiers."

For fleet managers and defense buyers, the takeaway is that commercial hybrid truck technology has officially crossed into Army sustainment — and the voice-commanded, self-driving resupply vehicle is no longer a concept, but a contract.

Sources

Defense Mobility Autonomy & Robotics