U.S. Army Depot Sought a 60-Inch Autonomous Mower With Fleet E-Stop and Collision Avoidance

Anniston Army Depot in Alabama has been shopping for a commercial-grade autonomous mower. A solicitation on SAM.gov, the U.S. government's contracting site, asked small businesses to offer one autonomous mowing system for the depot. Offers were due on October 5, 2026, so the window has closed, but the published requirements are worth reading: they show what a federal buyer treats as the minimum safety and fleet-control features for autonomous mowing.

The Solicitation

The notice, titled "Autonomous Mower" under solicitation number W911KF26QA059, was issued by Army Contracting Command at Anniston Army Depot. It was first posted on September 17, 2026 and updated on September 29. Questions were due by September 24, and offers by 10 a.m. Central time on October 5. It is a total small-business set-aside under NAICS 333112 (lawn and garden equipment manufacturing). The archive date is October 16, 2026. As of October 8, no awardee was shown on SAM.gov.

The description is one sentence: "The acquisition of one (1) commercial-grade autonomous mowing system for Anniston Army Depot (ANAD)." Delivery is to 7 Frankford Ave, Building 4, Anniston, AL 36201.

What the Army Asked For

The statement of work is not attached to the SAM.gov notice. The notice's four attachments are all links, including the entry for W911KF26QA059 in the Defense Department's PIEE Solicitation Module, which requires vendor registration to read. AI Mower News could not open the original document. The procurement-data service Starbridge publishes extracts from it, and these are the requirements we can quote from that page:

• Cutting width: "The autonomous mower shall have a minimum 60" cutting width."
• Fleet emergency stop: a portable remote Emergency Stop (E-Stop) able to control up to three (3) mowers simultaneously at a minimum operational radius of 500 feet.
• Loss of signal: an automatic loss-of-signal failsafe that immediately halts vehicle motion and stops blade rotation.
• Collision avoidance: an active collision avoidance system to prevent impact with personnel, wildlife, and static or dynamic obstacles.
• Obstructions: the mower must immediately come to a complete stop, disengage the cutting blades, and safely resume autonomous operations once the obstruction is cleared.

Other summaries of the solicitation circulating online list further requirements, such as a rear-discharge deck, run-flat tires, phone-based control software, a rollover shutdown and stored mowing-area profiles. We have not seen those clauses in a document we could read, so they are not reported here as fact.

Why a Depot Needs This

Anniston is not a city park. The depot describes itself as a U.S. Army maintenance center and munitions storage site occupying more than 25 square miles, with more than 15,000 acres of woodland. It is the Defense Department's Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for tracked and wheeled ground combat vehicles (except the Bradley), towed and self-propelled artillery, assault bridging, small-caliber weapons and locomotives, and it repairs the M1 Abrams tank, the M88 Recovery Vehicle and the Stryker. It began in 1941 as a storage depot. Mowing on a site like that means cutting around vehicles, people and wildlife over large areas, which explains the emphasis on a shared remote stop and on stopping the blades the moment contact with the controller is lost.

Why It Matters

Manufacturers write their own safety claims. A buyer's specification is the other side of the conversation. This one asks for a 60-inch cut, which rules out residential robots and points to the class of machine sold by commercial autonomous mower makers, and it treats a fleet-wide remote stop, a dead-link failsafe and active obstacle detection as entry requirements rather than options. Expect similar language in municipal and institutional tenders as they appear.

FAQ

Which Army site is buying an autonomous mower?

Anniston Army Depot in Anniston, Alabama, through Army Contracting Command, solicitation W911KF26QA059.

Can companies still bid?

No. Offers were due on October 5, 2026. The notice is scheduled to be archived on October 16.

Which mower won?

No award had been posted on SAM.gov as of October 8, 2026.

Sources: sam.gov/opp/0521c667fb034d2b85437fc3f3d81044/view · starbridge.ai/rfp/autonomous-mower-rfp · anad.army.mil/