Rheinmetall Mission Master CXT-Fire Support

Overview:

Rheinmetall introduced the Rheinmetall Mission Master CXT – Fire Support at the 2022 Association of the United States Army’s (AUSA) annual meeting and exhibition as ‘the latest member of its Mission Master family of Autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicles (A-UGV).’ This is a modified version of the Mission Master CXT, featuring a weaponised module. The Fire Support module ‘can provide rapid suppression of any light targets’, and is advertised by Rheinmetall as serving two primary functions: serving as ‘a kinetic counterdrone measure’, and ‘as close fire support for ground forces.’ It is ‘capable of long periods of continuous fire without the risk of damaging the weapon.’

All systems in the Mission Master family feature autonomous navigation capabilities driven by the Rheinmetall PATH Autonomy kit (A-kit), a ‘platform-agnostic A-kit’ which ‘provides operators with a wide range of advanced controlled modes’, such as a smart Rheinmetall tablet that is said to ‘enable safe firing.’ The PATH A-kit is also compatible with the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK) command and control system. It offers ‘teleoperation and autonomous options, including a smartwatch and single-hand controller, to meet the operational objectives of multiple scenarios.’ ^[1]Rheinmetall, ‘Rheinmetall unveils all-new Mission Master CXT platform and launches new Fire Support module at AUSA 2022’, … Continue reading

Autonomy:

The Rheinmetall Mission Master CXT Fire Support, which is equipped with Dillon dual M134D mini guns, features ‘autonomous detection and tracking of aerial and land targets’, with ‘safe firing engagement by the operator’ – with ‘man in or on the loop’. While Rheinmetall has stated that ‘according to the human-in-the-loop principle, the decision to open fire rests with a human’, the level of meaningful human control over the system is unclear given that the human can be either ‘in or on the loop’. A ‘wolfpack capability’ allows a single operator to manage multiple UGVs.