AZAK

Picture a robot you could carry up a flight of stairs, remotely towing a military truck that outweighs a fully loaded school bus, and doing it without breaking a wheel. That is the scene an American robotics company says it captured on video from a recent U.S. Army demonstration, and if the footage holds up, it says something striking about where battlefield logistics are headed. The company behind the video is AZAK, a Denver-based defense technology firm that posted the clip, describing a 500-pound unmanned ground vehicle towing a Palletized Load System truck, the U.S. Army's primary heavy hauler for ammunition and supplies, which the company says weighs 53,000 pounds (24,040 kg) empty. That figure lines up closely with published specifications for the Army's PLS A1 model, listed by its manufacturer, Oshkosh Defense, at a curb weight of 53,000 pounds before any cargo goes on board. In the video, the small robot is also hauling an extra 1,000 pounds (454 kg) of ammunition at the same time, meaning the tiny machine is moving more than 100 times its own weight in raw towing capacity, according to AZAK's own numbers. "The math seems impossible," AZAK wrote in the post. "The footage from a recent Army demonstration event says otherwise." Understanding why this matters starts with what a Palletized Load System truck actually is. Built by Oshkosh Defense, the PLS is the backbone of how the Army moves ammunition and supplies to the front, a five-axle truck that can load and unload standardized cargo pallets on its own using a hydraulic arm, without needing a forklift or a crew of soldiers standing around. It has been in service since 1993 and has hauled supplies through Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Getting a machine that size to move at all, let alone getting it towed by something a soldier could pick up with both hands, is not something that happens by accident. (Image courtesy of AZAK) That is where AZAK's design philosophy comes in, and it looks nothing like a typical military robot. Instead of building a vehicle with a chassis, axles, and a central engine, AZAK puts the entire propulsion system, motor, battery, gearbox, and control electronics, inside each individual wheel. The company calls its wheel module the S26, roughly 26 inches (66 cm) in diameter and weighing about 86 pounds (39 kg) on its own, capable of producing around 147 pound-feet of torque per wheel. Because each wheel is a self-contained power unit, AZAK can bolt four, six, or more of them onto almost any frame, even a wooden log in past company demonstrations, and the torque scales up with every wheel added. A four-wheel configuration is rated to haul up to 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of payload, which starts to explain how a robot in that weight class could get real traction against a stalled, multi-ton truck. AZAK frames the video as proof that the machine performs outside a sanitized lab setting, not inside one. "Notice the large bump in the video?" the company wrote. "This isn't a controlled lab test on a flat floor. This is a 53,000 lb deadweight hitting real-world resistance, and the AZAK didn't flinch." What is independently verifiable is that AZAK has been steadily working its way into the Army's unmanned ground vehicle pipeline over the past year. The company took part in a full training rotation at the National Training Center with the Army's 1st Cavalry Division in 2025, testing its platform on terrain where conventional vehicles struggled or could not go at all. It won the Army's xTech Edge Strike Ground competition, a program built to find promising new tactical technologies, and it joined G-TEAD, a marketplace designed to connect military buyers with emerging tech suppliers. AZAK unmanned ground platform during xTechOverwatch competition Oct. 28, 2025. Photo by Austin Thomas In March 2026, AZAK brought a second-generation version of its platform to the AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, one of the Army's biggest annual showcases for ground vehicle innovation. None of that guarantees the towing video shows exactly what AZAK claims, but it does show a company that has spent real time in front of Army evaluators rather than only posting demo footage online. The bigger picture here is the problem the Army is actually trying to solve, something the service has started calling the "last tactical mile," the final, most dangerous stretch of ground between a supply point and frontline troops, where enemy drones and artillery make every truck run a gamble. The Army has already tested other autonomous haulers for this job, including a six-wheeled robot called Hunter Wolf used by the 101st Airborne Division to move cargo during a training exercise earlier this year, and it has an open request out to industry for ground robots that can both carry cargo and evacuate wounded soldiers without worsening their injuries. A robot that is small enough to hide, light enough to carry, and strong enough to move a stuck multi-ton truck would check a lot of boxes for commanders trying to keep soldiers away from that stretch of road in the first place.

AZAK

TRENDING NOW

Russian naval gun maker patents a wheeled artillery version

Pentagon’s top general confirms historic Ukrainian dogfight win

Russia’s new anti-drone tank shield fails its combat debut

U.S. Army pays $99 million more for Humvees

Evidence of Ukraine using Dutch-built cruise missile in Russia emerges

About The Defence Blog