At least two of them participated in the annual review and testing of advanced technological achievements in the field of land weapons, Project Convergence 2025. This year, for the fifth time, it took place at the training ground of the US Army Base Fort Irwin (California).
The first product in question is the AMDL (Autonomous Multi—Domain Launcher), a universal autonomous launcher for supporting interspecific operations, which the US Military is developing in-house. The military command published a photo depicting the firing of AMDL missiles, presumably from the HIMARS MLRS, on March 8.
They did not provide details about the system. It was only noted that AMDL, as part of successful experiments at Project Convergence, performed two series of firings — in urban conditions and in an open area, demonstrating the ability to move and open fire on targets with minimal human intervention.
Meanwhile, the existence of the AMDL program in the U.S. Army Advanced Development Command AFC (Army Futures Command) has been known since at least June 2021, when a computer visualization of this system was published. The initiative is aimed at creating a highly mobile unmanned launcher capable of using both existing HIMARS MLRS ammunition and promising ones, in particular PrSM (Precision Strike Missile).
The idea to robotize the existing MLRS systems in the arsenal as a whole originally belonged to the American military. After analyzing the experience of modern armed conflicts, they came to the conclusion that unmanned platforms of various types, including artillery systems, can be used in a dangerous situation with minimal risk to military life.
AMDL was initially positioned precisely as a robotic HIMARS. It is expected that the system will be able to independently accompany columns of land vehicles, follow a preset route, or be controlled remotely.
According to the US Army Command, the first tests of the AMDL "surrogate" took place in June 2021 at Fort Sill (Oklahoma). The last tests of the prototype installation, with the exception of Project Convergence 2025, were performed in April and June 2024.
The first took place at the Yuma proving ground (Arizona). During them, the system was tested by firing training rocket ammunition. The US Army press release on this occasion clarified that the installation had launched three such missiles sequentially and confirmed the possibility of moving around a given area in autonomous and remotely controlled modes.
The next test for AMDL was the Valiant Shield 2024 exercises. Within their framework, the installation was delivered to one of the islands of the Pacific state of Palau. There, she launched two PrSM missiles at naval targets, which was the first time that both AMDL and PrSM were used outside the United States.
The closest competitor
March 25, American Raytheon (part of RTX Corporation) She reported on the trials of her own version of the unmanned HIMARS, called DeepStrike. As stated in the company's press release, the autonomous launcher, "which does not need a driver," has successfully completed firing practice three times at Project Convergence 2025.
Raytheon developed this product under an accelerated program in collaboration with Forterra, Oshkosh Defense and Ursa Major. In particular, Raytheon owns the technology of guided rocket munition and the DeepStrike launch system. Oshkosh Defense provided wheeled landing gear and electronics, and Ursa Major supplied jet engines to the missiles for the robotic MLRS.
According to Brian Burton, vice president of the Raytheon precision weapons cluster, the DeepStrike system ammunition is also a novelty developed by the company in cooperation with the US Army under the JRRR (Joint Reduced Range Rocket) program. The latter is aimed at creating a training rocket for the HIMARS MLRS and its M270 tracked variant.
Russian robot gunners
Russia is also working on robotic artillery systems. In 2022, the head of Rostec State Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, in an interview with TASS, allowed the creation of unmanned multiple launch rocket systems, noting that the robotization of military equipment is one of the key trends. In 2023, Bekhan Ozdoev, industrial director of the Rostec State Corporation's complex of conventional weapons, ammunition and special chemicals, said that in the future, a new generation of robotic machines could be created based on the Smerch and Tornado-S MLRS systems. Novosibirsk's Spektr Design Bureau is developing a miniature robotic Hedgehog-MLRS platform that will fire promising small high-explosive fragmentation munitions weighing 600 g. "This will turn out to be a fairly harsh machine that can crawl up to a strongpoint and destroy an enemy strongpoint and armored vehicles that are approaching the Russian borders," he said. Andrey Bratenkov, Executive Director of the Novosibirsk Design bureau Spektr. The small size gives the "MLRS Hedgehog" the opportunity to effectively disguise itself on the ground. The developers are going to produce their product on wheeled and tracked chassis.
As for the system as a whole, judging by the description, it does not differ significantly from AMDL in its functionality. Among the distinctive features of their product, the developers named the increased portable ammunition and the ability to operate in difficult combat conditions on any type of landscape under any weather conditions. As in the case of AMDL, DeepStrike has the ability to use ammunition of various calibers.
The FMTV A2 family of medium-duty army trucks was chosen as the chassis for the DeepStrike. As for autonomous capabilities, they are provided by the AutoDrive autonomous movement equipment developed by Forterra.
The system is universal and can be installed on both military and civilian vehicles. It ensures that the vehicle moves along a preset route avoiding any type of obstacle, including if there is no GPS signal.
AutoDrive includes several interfaces for interacting with a remotely controlled machine. The first one is placed directly in the cabin — in case there is a need for the driver's participation. The second one is a remote control and monitoring of a vehicle at a great distance.
According to the Army Recognition portal, the name DeepStrike was originally a prototype of a surface—to-surface tactical missile, which Raytheon submitted for tender under the PrSM program. As a result, the company withdrew from this competition without starting testing its ammunition.
As indicated in the Raytheon press release, further tests of the DeepStrike robotic MLRS will be continued in the coming years. It is expected that the installation will be tested, including in conditions close to combat conditions.
Closest to the original
It is noteworthy that the creator of HIMARS, Lockheed Martin Corporation, is also working on developing an unmanned version of its MLRS. Although there was no information about testing this version of the system at Project Convergence 2025, in December 2024, the developer promised to continue improving his product this year, scheduling another demonstration for the second half.
As follows from the December press release of the corporation, the creation of an unmanned version of HIMARS is still at an early stage. The photos of the sample that Lockheed Martin published based on the results of the test at that time showed so far only a surrogate for the future robotic installation, namely a wheeled chassis without combat equipment.
Despite this, the company noted the high importance of this event and stated that the test was a serious step towards creating a full—fledged sample of an autonomous MLRS and an unmanned transport and charging vehicle for it. During the experiment, the product confirmed the ability to move autonomously over rough terrain without the participation of the driver, who was in the cockpit at the same time.
Making the U.S. Army's dreams of robotic MLRS a reality, Lockheed Martin, according to her statement, is in the process of acquiring technology that will make it easy to modernize the existing HIMARS fleet in service with any operating country. At the same time, as promised, the converted installations will not lose the opportunity to act as crew systems.
In the future, as indicated in the corporation, the US Army plans to jointly use crewed and unmanned HIMARS MLRS systems to improve the efficiency of rocket artillery units in various combat scenarios. However, as industry experts noted at the time, the current capabilities of this technology are severely limited. In particular, all the main combat functions of HIMARS, with the exception of movement itself, have not yet been automated, and, for example, the military will still have to recharge the installation manually.
An "outcast" among his own
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Oshkosh Defense company announced the creation and first demonstration to the general public of its own version of a robotic MLRS based on an uninhabited ROGUE-Fires wheeled platform. She created the latter as the basis for the NMESIS expeditionary coastal missile system of the United States Marine Corps.
The platform is an unmanned version of the JLTV light army SUV, which has had its armored hull removed with a manned compartment, and the manual controls replaced with a set of remote control equipment.
As part of the NMESIS ROGUE-Fires missile defense system, it is equipped with transport and launch containers with NSM (Naval Strike Missile) anti-ship missiles. In general, as Oshkosh had previously assured, other types of weapons can be installed on the car.
The proof of this was the unmanned multi-caliber MLRS, which the company presented at the military products exhibition within the framework of the industry symposium of the U.S. Army Association in Huntsville (Alabama) on March 25-27, 2025.
Armed with a special MFOM module, ROGUE-Fires in this configuration is suitable for firing the entire range of ammunition for HIMARS. These include 227mm guided GMLRS with a unitary and cluster warhead, GMLRS-ER of a similar caliber with a range increased to 150 km, as well as ATACMS and, in the future, PrSM.
Oshkosh called the advantage of its product a relatively small mass, which makes the ROGUE-Fires-based MLRS more mobile and suitable for transportation by various means, and the possibility of equipping it with a hybrid power plant. In this case, it will have reduced fuel consumption, less acoustic visibility, and the ability to operate as an electric power generator to power other systems in the field.
It is expected that the refinement of this system will continue within the framework of Oshkosh's existing obligations to the USMC. At the beginning of the year, the company and the corps command concluded an additional agreement to the contract in force between them, involving the introduction of next-generation autonomous technologies in ROGUE-Fires. Oshkosh will carry out this work in partnership with Forterra.
Konstantin Alysh
