Replacing the Pintle/Lunette: Autonomous Vehicle Towing

Connecting a prime mover to a towed vehicle is a fundamental action that must routinely occur to ensure the mobility of Army formations. The tactical trailer fleet provides 41% of the Army’s ground lift capacity and transports mission essential equipment and supplies. Additionally, all tactical vehicles are required to have the capability of like-vehicle towing to enable disabled vehicle recovery.   Unfortunately, the Army’s current equipment for towing is over 80 years old. The standard pintle hitch, trailer lunette, and towbar have significant adverse impacts on operations because they require exact alignment to connect the trailer and multiple soldier actions to operate the pintle. Current methods waste time and fuel and increase risk by creating situations where soldiers must lift heavy trailer tongues and towbars or get between a moving truck and the trailer to complete the connection. Adverse conditions combine with this outdated technology to make an aggravating and time-wasting task dangerous  for soldiers. Deployment of autonomous systems that are intended to remove soldiers from formations, and new technologies to meet demands of MDO battlefields, means the problem will get worse in the future. Robotic Combat Vehicles (RCVs) and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Counter-UAS, are just two examples of systems being fielded that will tow or be deployed on trailers. Future operations will involve more trailers, more towing, and fewer soldiers available to connect and disconnect towed vehicles. Relying on the pintle/lunette in the Autonomous Transport Vehicle-System (ATV-S) program intended to augment the existing fleet of Palletized Load System (PLS) trucks, and in the next generation Common Tactical Truck (CTT), means the Army will not fully realize the manpower reduction and increased throughput envisioned for autonomous systems in sustainment operations because soldiers will  have to be re-inserted into operations to connect/disconnect trailers. Adopting existing hitches and towbars on RCVs will slow movement and expose soldiers who will need to get out of armored control vehicles to connect/disconnect RCVs for deployment or worse, move forward to connect to a disabled RCV for recovery. Our vision is to deliver an autonomous hitch system to improve versatility, increase speed, and reduce soldier risk in towing operations. In Phase 1 of the xTech Autonomy program, we completed the design of an automated hitch system to replace the pintle/lunette and enable connection of a prime mover to a towed vehicle without human intervention. The Phase 1 “Robohitch” rapid prototype described in this proposal is a hands-free secure hitch connection. This innovative hardware combined with TeleSwivel’s Autonomous Hitch System delivers a scalable Human Machine Integration system to transform towing from a source of operational friction and soldier risk to a multiplier that gives commanders options to bring additional capability into the fight.