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AUSA 2025: AimLock & Overland AI unveil new UGV fusing precision targeting and full autonomy.
AimLock and Overland AI have joined forces to combine autonomous targeting technology with advanced unmanned ground mobility. The new system is designed to deliver precision effects in complex, GPS-denied environments while keeping human oversight central.
During AUSA 2025 in Washington D.C., AimLock and Overland AI announced a partnership that integrates AimLock’s autonomous targeting and engagement technology with Overland AI’s fully autonomous tactical unmanned ground vehicle. The collaboration addresses a central challenge of modern operations: delivering precision effects in GPS-denied and communications-degraded environments while keeping humans in control. It reflects the broader shift toward modular, scalable robotics that can sustain tempo, protect personnel, and adapt quickly to evolving threats.
The defense product at the heart of the announcement is Overland AI’s mission-ready UGV, designed for beyond-line-of-sight autonomy and attritable use at the tactical edge (Picture source: Army Recognition Group)
On the show floor, the system appeared as a rugged, open-architecture UGV with long-travel suspension, high-clearance underbody, and oversized all-terrain tires engineered for broken ground. Above the chassis sat a stabilized weapon and sensor module featuring optics, fire-control electronics, and an autonomous slewing unit. Exposed interface rails, power distribution points, and payload bays underscored the platform’s plug-and-play philosophy, signaling rapid reconfiguration from one mission set to another without redesigning the vehicle.
The defense product at the heart of the announcement is Overland AI’s mission-ready UGV, designed for beyond-line-of-sight autonomy and attritable use at the tactical edge. AimLock contributes its Keystone Core Targeting Module (CTM) and a family of effectors, Spur, Rampart, Summit, Switchback, and ROLS, allowing the vehicle to detect, track, and engage threats through a human-in-the-loop workflow. In practice, the UGV provides mobility, power, and interfaces, while CTM automates sensing, cueing, and ballistic solutions; the operator retains final authority to fire, preserving accountability and rules-of-engagement compliance.
Development has progressed through iterative testing with U.S. defense stakeholders. Overland AI matured autonomous mobility and perception on representative military platforms and in trials that stress GPS denial, EW interference, and complex terrain. In parallel, AimLock refined stabilized auto-tracking and engagement logic across multiple weapon classes, validating target handoff, shot execution, and recovery procedures. The convergence of these lines of effort yields a system that can move, sense, and deliver effects under tight human supervision, reducing cognitive load while accelerating engagements.
The combined advantages are clear. Tactically, units gain stand-off lethality and improved survivability by pushing autonomous carriers forward instead of soldiers, while maintaining rapid threat prosecution against drones, light armor, and dismounted adversaries. Operationally, a single chassis can cover counter-UAS, force protection, direct action, integrated defense, strike anti-armor, and support-by-fire simply by swapping payloads, streamlining logistics, training, and sustainment. Technically, open interfaces shorten integration timelines for new effectors or non-kinetic payloads, future-proofing the platform against emerging threats.
Strategic implications extend beyond a single vehicle. Geopolitically, adaptable, attritable UGVs help allies thicken defenses across dispersed airfields, logistics nodes, and forward positions without committing large numbers of personnel. Geostrategically, they align with manned-unmanned teaming concepts that distribute risk and complicate an adversary’s targeting calculus. Militarily, human-in-the-loop autonomy compresses the sensor-to-shooter timeline while preserving legal and ethical oversight, an essential requirement as autonomous effects proliferate.
Taken together, the AUSA 2025 debut presents more than a payload integration. It points to a practical, scalable path for fielding robotic ground teamers that extend reach, shorten decision cycles, and keep commanders firmly in charge. If upcoming trials translate into procurement, a UGV equipped with AimLock’s CTM-driven effectors could become a staple of layered defense and mobile fire support, adding resilient punch at the edge of the network.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.