New TRX Tracked Unmanned Vehicle Has 50 Suicide Drones

Earlier this week, General Dynamics Land Systems demonstrated their TRX tracked unmanned vehicle as a mobile launch platform for 50 AeroVironment Switchblade loitering missiles, dubbed "suicide drones." The Army now aims to test TRX variants alongside the Ripsaw M5 unmanned mini-tank and Pratt Miller and QinetiQ's Expeditionary Modular Autonomous Vehicle through a testing event next year.

During the Association of the United States Army's major annual meeting in Washington, D.C., which began on October 11 and ended yesterday, the loitering munition-armed TRX concept was on show. In addition to 2 banks of 13 launch tubes for Switchblade 600 drones, the TRX on show at AUSA this year also features two more arrays of 12 tubes each.

It does have an internal tethered quadcopter-type unmanned aerial vehicle. This setup combines reconnaissance, monitoring, and organic strike capabilities in a tiny, mobile device suitable for deployment in high-risk areas. Unlike typical drones and missiles, loitering munitions like the Switchblades may scout ahead and search for suitable targets, then strike them immediately if needed.

The Switchblade family from AeroVironment uses operator-in-the-loop control, where the controller sees what the drone performs using electro-optical and infrared cameras in its front during flight. The user can order the drones to fly to certain destinations and track targets. This improves the system's precision and safety by allowing the operator to cancel a strike if conditions change, such as innocent civilians suddenly emerging in the targeted region.

The basic concept was inspired by Howe and Howe's entry into the Army Robot Combat Vehicle-Medium (RCV-M) Contest, which was looking for a 10-20 ton drone. Its first vehicle, the GD-TL-1, was equipped with the identical RT40 turret from Norwegian military firm Kongsberg, with a 30mm XM813 automatic cannon and a 7.62x51mm M240 machine gun.

Despite the TRX's defeat in the RCV-M competition, the Army intends to put four of these unmanned systems through their paces at Fort Hood, Texas, next year as part of a wider experiment. TRX's development and production, as well as its overall design philosophy, appear to be under consideration by GDLS for use in future endeavors.