British Army seeks drones to fly with Apache gunships
The British Army is moving ahead with plans to develop a new autonomous aircraft designed to operate alongside Apache AH-64E attack helicopters, according to a Ministry of Defence notice.
The planned Land Autonomous Collaborative Platform (LACP) would be an uncrewed air system (UAS) operating in a “highly autonomous, ‘commanded not controlled’ manner”, able to perform multiple mission types in contested environments. These include “reconnaissance, target acquisition, strike, countermeasure defeat, and integration with Launched Effects”.
According to the notice, the aim is to “enhance the lethality and survivability of the crewed platform and do so with a smaller logistic footprint and lower maintenance requirement relative to the crewed platform”. A Vertical Take-off and Landing (VToL) UAS with the capacity to carry payloads of around 200kg or more is considered most likely to meet the operational requirement.
The Army says it is interested in “innovative and novel solutions that leverage advancements in autonomy, modularity, and manufacturing scalability”, with a focus on AI-enabled decision-making, digital twins, synthetic environments, and secure digital and data standards. Modular payloads are also expected to play a role, enabling rapid reconfiguration of the system for different missions.