UK Human Machine Teaming programme reopens to new suppliers

The UK has reopened the HMT programme to new suppliers. Pictured is DefendTex D40 nUAS, which was involved in one of the frameworks projects. (Crown Copyright)

The UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) Human Machine Teaming (HMT) programme reopened to new suppliers on 22 May.

Initially announced in May 2022, the three-year GBP300 million (USD372.4 million) HMT project seeks to collate lessons from the British Army's experimentation activity in Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) and enable rapid iterations across the full spectrum of potential capabilities.

An MoD spokesperson informed Janes that the framework aims to reopen every six months to allow new vendors to join and be privy to future competitions expected to run in the next six to 12 months.

HMT will be delivered through a multisupplier framework agreement, with multiple competitions completed across different ‘Lots'. These ‘Lots' are segregated into four different components – hardware, such as unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), and payloads and consumables; software , ranging from external, internal, platform, reliability, and maintenance analysis; professional and technical services , including design, safety, human factors, ethics, and other contracted/consultancy RAS support activities; and enabling and networks, such as the integration of RAS, data management, and communications.