A Seattle-based defense technology company has secured a roughly $20 million production contract with the U.S. Marine Corps to build autonomous unmanned ground vehicles, with delivery expected in early 2027.
Overland AI announced the deal in late June. The company’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Greg Okopal, said the award signals that the Marine Corps sees the technology as ready for real-world use.
“This is a vote of confidence from the Marines that the technology that we have is ready for the mission,” Okopal said.
The Marine Corps says it plans to use the vehicles for tasks like moving ammunition and supplies, work aimed at keeping Marines out of harm’s way.
How the contract came together
The award was made through APFIT, the Pentagon’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program, using a production Other Transaction Agreement. APFIT launched in fiscal year 2022 to push proven technologies into military use more quickly, cutting through some of the usual procurement red tape.
The vehicles are being built to support the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, known as MADIS, which initially focuses on autonomous logistics, including ammunition resupply, in contested environments. Okopal said Overland’s work falls under the Marine Corps’ ground-based air defense program, which he described as “a disparate array of vehicle-mounted sensors and effectors that can protect from various UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) and other airborne threats.”
Why ground vehicles, not just drones
Overland AI argues that despite the rise of aerial drones on the battlefield, ground combat still decides wars. Chris Merz, the company’s chief of staff, pointed to Ukraine as an example of where unmanned ground vehicles are increasingly being used.
“They started with using them for sustainment but increasingly you’re seeing them used in combat operations, taking and holding terrain…I really think that is the future application of uncrewed and autonomous ground vehicles and we’ll start to see that more in future conflicts,” Merz said.
Unlike remotely piloted vehicles, Overland’s system is designed to operate fully autonomously, without a person steering or remotely controlling it during a mission.
“Our vehicles, you task them with a mission, you press execute, those vehicles will execute that mission whether you have communications with them or not, whether you’re paying attention to them or not, they are fully autonomous,” Okopal said.
The company says the vehicles can operate beyond the line of sight and in environments where GPS is unavailable, carrying out assigned missions even without communications.
“All battlefields now are electronic, contested environments, right? So you cannot necessarily rely on distant comms to complete your mission,” Okopal said.
The vehicles are built to navigate rough, off-road terrain, including ditches, inclines and boulders, and to handle broader mission goals rather than simple point-to-point directions. A fleet, for instance, could be programmed to establish surveillance around a set of coordinates and manage threat response.
“The very important thing is getting Marines and soldiers for the Army as well out of danger,” Okopal said.
What the Marine Corps says
The Marine Corps provided the following statement:
“The U.S. Marine Corps Program Manager Ground-Based Air Defense (PM GBAD) has awarded an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement to Overland AI to develop and procure Autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicles (AUGVs). Designed to sustain the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) family of systems across contested littoral and distributed operating environments, these AUGVs bridge the ‘last tactical mile’ logistics gap by automating ammunition resupply and reducing risk to warfighters. While initial efforts focus on autonomous logistics distribution via resilient, AI-driven networks, future capability spirals will integrate modular sensor packages and effectors to extend the active detection, tracking, identification, and defeat of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), rotary-wing aircraft, and low-altitude fixed-wing threats.”
