Textron Unveils CoreMotion Kit to Turn Crewed Ground Vehicles Into Robotic Platforms

Textron Systems unveiled CoreMotion, a robotic control package that translates commands from autonomy software and remote operators into vehicle steering, braking and power distribution, at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., on October 12, 2026. The company is marketing the kit both for new uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) and for converting existing crewed fleets to robotic operation.

CoreMotion is not a clean-sheet design. Textron describes it as the control backbone of its RIPSAW family of UGVs, credited with more than 8,000 miles of operation. Its launch as a standalone product comes 17 months after the Army canceled its Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) competition in May 2025 under the Army Transformation Initiative, shortly after the RIPSAW M3 was reported as the selected platform. In parallel, Army ground autonomy efforts have increasingly centered on kits that make vehicles already in the inventory optionally crewed, from logistics trucks to tracked carriers.

How Textron CoreMotion Bridges Autonomy Software and Vehicle Hardware

Textron defines CoreMotion as a middle-layer execution system. It sits between the autonomy stack that decides where a vehicle goes and the actuators that physically move it, interpreting both human and machine-generated commands across vehicle subsystems, robotic controls, autonomous navigation and mission payloads.

The package combines mission software with ruggedized hardware, including computers, actuators, wiring and electronics, designed for installation as a field-level kit. This is the drive-by-wire and vehicle management layer that any robotic conversion needs before a navigation algorithm can steer, brake or allocate power. It is also the most vehicle-specific part of an autonomy program, where integration costs accumulate as software meets legacy mechanical systems.

Textron’s central claim is hardware and software agnosticism. Ryan Schaffernocker, Senior Vice President for Air, Land and Sea Systems, said CoreMotion gives customers “a low-risk path to autonomy adoption” while leaving them free to integrate the autonomy stack they prefer. That positioning tracks with Army practice. The service has developed core autonomy software internally through the Robotic Technology Kernel (RTK), a government-owned library of navigation and vehicle control modules, while buying platforms separately. A control layer that accepts government or third-party autonomy fits that split model.

Textron has not disclosed kit weight, installation time, unit cost, supported interface standards, safety certification status, or which non-RIPSAW vehicle classes it has validated.

From Purpose-Built RIPSAW UGVs to Retrofitted Crewed Fleets

CoreMotion’s field record comes from the RIPSAW line built by Textron subsidiary Howe & Howe. Publicly available Textron specifications list the RIPSAW M5, which served as the Army’s RCV-Medium prototype, at a 10.5-ton combat weight with an 8,000-pound payload, a diesel hybrid-electric drivetrain and a top speed above 40 mph. The smaller RIPSAW M3, delivered as two prototypes for RCV Phase I in October 2024, carries 5,000 pounds, supplies 10 kW of offload power for sensors and weapons, exceeds 180 miles of range, and keeps an 80-inch width for internal transport aboard a CH-47 Chinook. Sweden became the first European buyer of the M3 in late 2025.

The M5 chassis has already hosted autonomy that Textron did not write. The RACER Heavy Platform, built for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency program, is a 12-ton, 20-foot tracked vehicle based on the M5 and upfitted by Carnegie Robotics. It served as an off-road autonomy test bed and supported an Army breaching demonstration with the 36th Engineer Brigade at Fort Hood, Texas, in late 2025.

Retrofit is a harder case. Converting a crewed vehicle means mapping a control layer onto steering, braking and power architectures never designed for robotic command. Textron calls CoreMotion an affordable and scalable route to that conversion but has named no legacy platform carrying the kit. For now, the 8,000-mile record belongs to purpose-built robotic vehicles, not converted crewed ones.

Where CoreMotion Fits in the Army’s Autonomy Retrofit Push

CoreMotion enters a retrofit market the Army is already shaping. Under the Ground Expeditionary Autonomous Retrofit System (GEARS) project, run with the Defense Innovation Unit within the Autonomous Transport Vehicle System (ATV-S) effort, the service plans to convert 41 Oshkosh Palletized Load System trucks into optionally crewed resupply vehicles, and later narrowed the field to Carnegie Robotics and Forterra.

For armor, BAE Systems announced in September 2025 a partnership with Forterra to deliver an autonomous Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) prototype in 2026 under its capability kit initiative, with RENK America providing transmission-level drive-by-wire hardware. The same RENK transmission family equips the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, M109 Paladin and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, which points toward conversion across the medium tracked fleet.

These programs share CoreMotion’s premise that robotic capability can be added to hulls already in service. They also define the competition. Textron’s differentiation rests on accumulated field mileage and on separating the control layer from any single autonomy vendor.

Analysis: CoreMotion converts Textron’s RCV investment into a product that no longer depends on one program of record. When the Army canceled the RCV, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll cited requirements growth and contrasted a roughly $3 million vehicle with an $800 drone able to destroy it. Retrofit kits answer that cost argument by reusing vehicles the Army already owns and turning them into controllable nodes within human-machine formations. The constraint is the network, not the actuator. A converted vehicle delivers value only when tied to resilient datalinks, operator control units and electronic warfare-hardened command paths, which Textron’s announcement does not address and which the RCV effort had assigned to separate Army programs.

The next indicators are a named retrofit customer, a demonstration on a fielded crewed platform, and disclosure of the interface standards the kit supports. On the Army side, ATV-S fielding and the AMPV autonomy demonstration will set the benchmark. Whether the service funds a dedicated line for autonomy kits on existing fleets, after stepping back from a bespoke robotic combat vehicle, will determine the size of the market CoreMotion is built for.