Textron Systems and the Horstman Group are collaborating in order to enhance Textron’s M5 Robotic Vehicle – Medium (RV-M) with the Horstman Group’s HydroCore suspension. This new partnership was announced at Eurosatory 2022 in Paris.
Textron Systems’ M5 RV-M is an unmanned variant of the company’s RIPSAW manned vehicle. With a flat deck design, the M5 RV-M supports a diverse set of payloads for various missions that remove the soldier from the riskiest places on the battlefield. As a hybrid-electric robotic Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), the M5 RV-M is designed to support near silent maneuvers, without compromising power or mobility.
The Horstman Group’s HydroCore is said to be the first integrated hydropneumatic spring and damper product developed under the Horstman Scalable Mobility architecture. The HydroCore strut provides improved levels of stability, ride quality and speed-over-terrain performance.
“The vehicle dynamics, efficiency and maintenance benefits we expect from HydroCore will help make the M5 RV-M the most capable, high-performance UGV in its class available for the warfighter,” said David Phillips, senior vice president for Land and Sea Systems at Textron Systems, said.
“Launching the HydroCore at [Eurosatory] is the culmination of over two years of internal research and development,” said Ian Pain, chief executive officer for the Horstman Group. “With this product we have developed a solution that takes the best attributes and lessons learned from 15 years of Hydrostrut, semi-active, fully active, Ride Height Control System (RHCS) and track tensioner experience to create a product that offers true flexibility and affordable upgrades to our customers.”
Over the next two years, the Horstman Scalable Mobility architecture and HydroCore upgrade kits will be fully field tested. The Horstman Scalable Mobility architecture means that when the M5 RV-M has the HydroCore strut installed at the time of vehicle manufacture, a new functionality can be added to the strut at a later date through the application of one or more upgrade kits – all without modification of the HydroCore strut.
The HydroCore strut is available in either a passive damping kit, semi-active damping kit or fully active kit configuration.
