What project BF4 buys
This project cultivates the industrial ecosystem for robotics and autonomy by shepherding an industry-developed common Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) that drives interoperability, fosters competition, lowers the barrier to entry for partners, and prevents vendor lock. CoVeR delivers shared standards, enabling technologies and Army-specific technical expertise, ensuring the scalable integration of best-of-breed, multi-domain robotic and autonomous system capabilities into Army formations to maintain battlefield overmatch. This project is also coordinated with Program Element (PE) 0602145A (Next Generation Combat Vehicle Technology), and transitions to PE 0604017A. Work in this project is performed by the Ground Vehicle System Center (GVSC).
Project BF4 funding, FY2025–FY2031
Prior years are actuals, the budget year is the request, and the outyears are the FYDP plan. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure. Projects carry the full five-year plan; the activities inside them stop at the budget year.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 50.7 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 32.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 23.2 |
| FY2028 | Outyear | 30.4 |
| FY2029 | Outyear | 26.7 |
| FY2030 | Outyear | 34.1 |
| FY2031 | Outyear | 34.5 |
6 accomplishments / planned programs
The R-2A exhibit — the only level of the budget that describes work that has not happened yet. Activities carry the prior, current and budget year only, no five-year plan. 1 of them describes FY2027 work in enough detail to have its own page; the rest are shown here in full. Coverage is partial across the corpus, so count activities, never total them.
Will advance the Army's un-crewed systems capabilities through a coordinated effort focused on architecture, security, resilience, and integration, prioritizing the rapid adoption of ready-now commercial technologies. Expand the foundational un-crewed architecture and interoperability standards - leveraging open standards, modular…
Read the FY2027 plan →FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Unmanned Maneuver Demonstration within this project.
FY2026 plans — current year Will improve, extend, and demonstrate an optimized closed loop safety certified drive by wire (DBW) for robotic ground vehicles. Focus on optimization and demonstration of safety certified components. These certifiable components align to Army safety standards and improve the safety pedigree for unmanned system. Focus on expanding safety certified control to assured teleoperation which ensure safe and valid commands from a known operator are executed or the system/platform revert to a safe state. Additional focus placed on assured video which ensure real-time video from electro-optical sensors to robotic users while operating unmanned systems. RVMS manage the state of the unmanned platform…
FY2025 accomplishments Mature and continue optimization of safety processes, components, and software focused on low level control (base vehicle platforms sensors, Drive By-Wire (DBW) systems, payload/subsystem management/monitoring) for uncrewed systems. Expand integration of safety certified components onto uncrewed systems to improve safe mobility with positive control for uncrewed ground vehicles. These certified components and subsystems increase reliability of the platform, mean time between failure, and improve operational safety for users and close operators. Maturation of safety components to expand utilization of Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) and align to well defined systems safety standards to…
FY2025 accomplishments Improve and demonstrate an autonomous maneuver capabilities, with autonomous vehicles operating at speeds comparable to manned vehicles and executing comparable movement techniques in obstructed environments; continue to improve and demonstrate coordinated movements including both robotic platforms and Soldiers in these environments, such as collaborate zone-based surveillance; continue to improve performance and demonstrate autonomous maneuver in degraded or hostile environments, enabling autonomous maneuvers in areas where sensor performance is poor (e.g., due to weather or smoke) and communications are not reliable; improve night-time operation of autonomous vehicles by reducing vehicle…
FY2026 to FY2027 change Funding decrease reflects realignment to Unmanned Maneuver Demonstration within this project.
FY2026 plans — current year Will improve and develop autogenerated operations order into translated mission tasks for the robotic operators to understand from their mission completion and robotic capability within the Uncrewed Vehicle Control (UVC) architecture. Highlight an enriched user interface and allow the robot operator to achieve a mission with much more effectiveness. Integrate into the RVIS model and add focus on the control of a variety of mission payloads (e.g., CROWS). Enable us to reduce the operator to robot ratio. Provides the operators the ability to edit and notify their team and command and control and be able to task individual robotic assets.
FY2025 accomplishments Improve and demonstrate the ability to operate three or more robotic assets from by a single operator within through the Warfighter Machine Interface (WMI). This task will develop improve the user interface minimize the by reducing the cognitive workload on a single operator and while allowing the robot operator to achieve the mission with more effective improved understanding of the robot's situational awareness, ability to maneuver and achieve the mission fully; integration into RVIS model. These functions will be visible validated at the Engineering Evaluation Test's (EET) as through the soldier robotic interface technologies will be linked linkage across many of the testing events.
FY2025 accomplishments Continue to integrate, optimize, and demonstrate advanced autonomy behaviors, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, and optimize small, unmanned ground system platform and controls (using the Warfighter Machine Interface -WMI); mature and demonstrate enhanced autonomy behaviors for small Unmanned Ground Vehicles by continuing to improve the RTK capabilities for small platform teaming to autonomously deploy from an unmanned combat vehicle and maneuver in rough terrain to perform tasks ISR missions; integrate and demonstrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled electro-optical and audio Modular Mission Payload (MMP) sensors with small UGV autonomy to optimize threat…
FY2025 accomplishments Advance robotic and autonomous systems warfighter effectiveness, lethality and survivability for Human-Machine Integrated Formations (H-MIF) by developing and integrating command and control (C2) and autonomy software for robotic maneuver and payload control; mature autonomy for ground robots through software development, advancement and integration of industry best of breed capability and innovation leveraging robotic vehicle management system (RVMS) for assured control; instantiate modular open system architecture design for sensors, intra-vehicle and eternal networks; finalize infantry and armor formation control vehicle designs and integrate external network, power distribution…