The value of the project highlights the MoD’s commitment to advancing ACP development.

The UK has launched a new competition to develop an Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) that will support the British Army’s Apache AH-64 Echo helicopters, according to a 4 November tender notice from UK Defence Innovation.  

Valued at an estimated GBP100 million, the competition, known as ‘Project NYX’, requires an ACP that can operate in a highly autonomous, “commanded not controlled” manner, supporting a range of tasks including reconnaissance, target acquisition, strike, countermeasure defeat, and integration with launched effects. 

It follows a market engagement published by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in August, intended to identify potential solutions and evaluate the readiness and availability of existing technologies. 

In the initial phase of Project NYX, the MoD aims to develop a ‘Capability Concept Demonstrator’ and is inviting prospective suppliers to collaborate in validating the 'Land ACP' concept.

“Further spiral development activity will iterate the prototype system against user performance requirements to prove the concept and provide insights and learning to inform future phases”, the MoD said.  

Areas of interest for the MoD include integration and interoperability considerations with existing military communications networks and hardware, as well as the specification and management of autonomous behaviours. 

Other areas of interest include supporting military development of autonomy standards, certifications and regulatory approvals, and modular open systems architectures for ACPs, among other things. 

The competitive tender will be carried out using a multi-stage evaluation that includes multiple downselection events. The MoD also said it may consider restricting the competition to UK companies in the interest of sovereignty. 

Contract dates are estimated to run from 31 March 2026 to 31 March 2028, with possible extensions to 30 September 2028.