Wheel-powered drone makes the cut in U.S. Army trials

Denver-based AZAK has been added as a seventh company to the U.S. Army’s Infantry Last Tactical Mile program, a competition for uncrewed ground vehicles that would carry supplies to front-line infantry, evacuate wounded soldiers and extend radio networks near the forward line of troops, the company said.

AZAK announced the news in a LinkedIn post on Oct. 12, saying the Army had originally capped the first group of finalists at six and brought AZAK in as a late addition after strong backing from the Army’s Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate, known as G-TEAD, and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, the Stryker unit based in Vilseck, Germany. The company said it is now preparing for the next phase of evaluations and did not disclose which vehicle configuration it will enter or how many prototypes it will deliver.

The Army named its original six companies in August: Maren-Go, Overland AI, Forterra, Hendrick Motorsports, American Rheinmetall and HDT, which has since renamed itself BLADE and entered its six-wheeled Hunter WOLF, while Forterra has shown its MESA vehicle built on a Polaris Ranger. Each company is to deliver production-ready prototypes that can be controlled from beyond line of sight and switched between resupply and casualty evacuation, and the program is set to end with an operational assessment alongside an Army unit in early 2027 that will shape the production decision for the Army’s next generation of autonomous infantry vehicles.

AZAK takes a different route from most of its rivals, which start from a complete vehicle with a chassis, axles and a central engine. The company instead puts the motor, battery, gearbox, brakes and control electronics inside each wheel, so its S26 wheel module, first shown publicly at the DSEI exhibition in London in 2025, works as a self-contained drive unit that can be bolted onto different frames. AZAK says the 26-inch (66 cm) wheels can be combined into a small cargo carrier, a stretcher platform, a counter-drone mount or a drone launcher, with torque rising as more wheels are added, and that a damaged wheel can be swapped in the field instead of sending the whole vehicle for repair. Because the heavy components sit below the center of each wheel, the company says its vehicles have a low center of gravity that lets them climb over obstacles instead of driving around them.

The design also delivers a lot of pulling power for its size, according to the company. In a July demonstration, AZAK said a 227 kg (500-pound) vehicle built from its wheels towed a 24,040 kg (53,000-pound) Palletized Load System truck, the Army’s main heavy hauler for ammunition, along with about 454 kg (1,000 pounds) of ammunition, more than 100 times the vehicle’s own weight.

Most of AZAK’s progress has come through field trials with soldiers. The Army evaluated its platform during the 2025 xTech Overwatch competition and a rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, where Army photographs from October 2025 show soldiers testing the system, and the company brought a second-generation version to the AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, in March. AZAK said soldiers also put its vehicles through Operation Overwatch, the xTech Edge Strike Ground competition and two Transformation in Contact rotations, in which the Army hands new equipment directly to operational units for feedback.

That record led to AZAK’s first Army deal in September, when the company signed an Other Transaction Agreement with G-TEAD to field its vehicles with Army units, becoming one of the first companies picked for the directorate directly by soldiers who had tested its equipment.