US Army eyeing new M-LIDS competition, live-fire prototype testing in 2023

US soldiers with the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, conduct Mobile Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Integrated Defense System (M-LIDS) training at Camp Buehring in Kuwait in January 2022. The service wants to take the two-vehicle weapon system and integrate it onto a single vehicle. (US Army)

The US Army is seeking companies that can merge its Mobile, Low, Slow, Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System (M-LIDS) technologies onto a single ground vehicle, possibly a Stryker, and enable the weapon to hit aerial threats while on the move.

The M-LIDS Increment 2 is a two-vehicle solution using the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) All-Terrain Vehicles (M-ATV) where one vehicle detects and tracks aerial threats and a second outfitted kinetic and non-kinetic technologies downs group 1–3 unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Instead, the army wants to “transition” M-LIDS onto a single vehicle while also maintaining “mission effectiveness and enhancing system ease of use and reliability” as part of an Increment 3 programme, according to a 13 June request for information issued by the US Army Materiel Command.

Although an M-ATV may be used for this upgraded effort, the army notes that a Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV) Double-V Hull or a “similar prime mover” may be used.

“Offerors must be able to perform all tasks expected of a lead systems integrator and provide a fully integrated [counter-UAS] C-UAS mission equipment package onto a single vehicle,” the army wrote.