Six companies have been selected to develop concepts of an autoloader system for the U.S. Army's Extended-Range Cannon Artillery program, Defense News reported Saturday.
The service branch provided $150K for Field Artillery Autonomous Resupply cohort participants to create designs over a 12-week period.
The Army Futures Command's capability accelerator and applications laboratory oversees the design effort, which commenced Jan. 13 in Austin.
The military branch aims to field initial ERCA systems in fiscal 2023 and deploy a version of the weapon with an autoloader the following year.
ERCA autoloader designers are due to present their concepts by April 2.
The participants are:
- Actuate
- Apptronik
- Carnegie Robotics
- Pratt & Miller Engineering
- Neya Systems
- Hivemapper
