Philadelphia startup’s unmanned vehicle makes U.S. Army shortlist

Philadelphia-based Raptor Defense Company is advancing in two U.S. Army programs with PIT VIPER, a small modular wheeled unmanned ground vehicle the company calls a “Personal Combat Vehicle” and designs to be fielded at the level of the individual soldier, the company announced.

Raptor was selected for Phase II of GroundBreaker 1, a joint unmanned ground vehicle demonstration, after a government technical evaluation of its Phase I solution brief. The company said the Army’s selection notice found its proposed solution showed strong potential to meet critical mission requirements.

The company was also named one of nine finalists in the G-TEAD USARPAC ACE 27-01: Autonomous Sustainment competition, run through the Army’s xTech program, in the category of autonomous ground delivery systems for logistics and resupply. Raptor said it will demonstrate PIT VIPER on Oahu, Hawaii, showing how the vehicle can carry out autonomous resupply, reduce risk to personnel and sustain dispersed forces across contested terrain in the Indo-Pacific.

“Being selected to advance in both GroundBreaker 1 and Army xTech is a major milestone for Raptor and the PIT VIPER program,” said Andrew DeLuca, founder and CEO of Raptor Defense Company. “More importantly, these programs give us the opportunity to put the platform directly in front of Soldiers, receive real operational feedback, and continue developing the system around the needs of the warfighter.”

Raptor developed PIT VIPER as an alternative to traditional unmanned ground vehicles, which tend to be larger, more expensive and built around a narrow set of missions. The company instead set out to build a smaller, rugged vehicle cheap enough to issue widely and flexible enough to take on many jobs. Its modular design accepts mission-specific payloads for resupply, casualty evacuation, reconnaissance, breaching and communications.

“We built PIT VIPER to be affordable enough to deploy at scale, rugged enough to operate across demanding terrain, and adaptable enough to support virtually any mission,” said DeLuca. “Our vision is to make robotic capability an everyday asset for the warfighter rather than a specialized capability available only when the mission or budget allows.”

The company began as a dorm-room startup building robotic vehicles to detect landmines. It later worked with Ukrainian units during the war, gaining direct experience of how ground robots hold up in active combat, and gathered feedback from the U.S. Army before shifting its focus to the personal combat vehicle concept. Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania was its first institutional investor.

GroundBreaker 1 is a Department of War event organized through the Drone OTA Consortium, which issued its call for unmanned ground vehicles on Aug. 21. Platforms at Camp Grafton were to be operated in realistic field conditions, including by service members who give feedback on usability and mission effectiveness. Other companies selected for Phase II include BLADE, with its Hunter WOLF vehicle, and GaardTech.

A successful Phase II evaluation may lead to an invitation to Phase III, where Raptor could submit a full proposal for a prototype Other Transaction Authority award, a fast-track contracting route the Pentagon uses to buy prototypes from nontraditional suppliers. The xTech competition offers a similar path to an Other Transaction Authority opportunity for selected participants.