IN Brief:
- Hanwha has demonstrated a K9 concept feeding targeting data from a VTOL drone directly into artillery fire direction.
- Future K9-derived concepts include wheeled artillery platforms using technologies developed for the automated K9A2 turret.
- Hanwha plans to connect its TOMMS sustainment system with Polish spares infrastructure and develop predictive logistics for K9 operators.
Hanwha Aerospace has set out the next stages of development for its K9 artillery family, combining drone-enabled targeting, new wheeled configurations, automated turrets, and data-led sustainment around a system already operated by a growing group of European and Asia-Pacific users.
The roadmap was presented at the K9 User Club in Tartu, Estonia, where more than 200 military and industry representatives are meeting from 2–4 September. Participants come from South Korea, Estonia, Poland, Norway, Finland, Romania, and Australia, with Spain and Sweden attending as observers. Australia is due to host the next meeting in 2027.
One of the principal demonstrations in Estonia connects a vertical take-off and landing fire-guidance drone directly with the K9 fire mission. Hanwha says the aircraft can detect and track a target, generate coordinates, and transmit them into the fire-direction system before remaining over the area to observe impacts and conduct battle-damage assessment.
The arrangement places the aerial sensor much closer to the gun’s own command chain than a conventional process based on coordinates being relayed through separate reconnaissance and command organisations. Continuous observation can also update targeting against vehicles or other time-sensitive objectives that may move between initial detection and the arrival of rounds.
Integrating the drone into artillery fire direction shifts part of the system’s performance requirement away from the gun itself and towards data handling. Communications, coordinate accuracy, track identity, software interfaces, and the time required to move information between the aircraft and fire-control system all affect whether the shorter sensor-to-shooter cycle works in practice.
The concept does not mean the K9 has become an autonomous weapon system, and Hanwha has not announced a contracted production configuration built around the new drone. It is an operating concept demonstrating how organic sensing could be incorporated into future artillery units as customers look for faster engagement cycles and reduced reliance on forward observers in exposed positions.
Hanwha is also extending K9 technology beyond the tracked chassis. The company used the User Club to outline wheeled artillery concepts incorporating established elements from the K9 development roadmap, including the fully automated turret being developed for K9A2.
Moving an existing turret and weapon architecture onto a wheeled platform could allow greater road mobility and deployment flexibility while retaining more commonality with the K9 family. It is not a simple chassis substitution: recoil loads, vehicle stability, ammunition stowage, crew layout, electrical demand, transport limits, and firing geometry all change when a heavy artillery system is placed on a different mobility platform.
The attraction lies in avoiding an entirely separate technical ecosystem where proven K9 components can be retained. Common turret systems, ammunition handling, fire-control software, and support equipment could reduce development and sustainment duplication, provided enough of the design remains genuinely common after integration.
Hanwha’s recent selection for the US Army’s Mobile Tactical Cannon prototype programme gives the company another route for K9-derived technology into wheeled artillery. That US programme is separate from the concepts presented in Estonia, but both reflect the company’s effort to use the K9 technology base across a wider set of mobile-fire requirements.
The third element of the roadmap concerns sustainment. Hanwha’s TOMMS Sustainment Portal digitises processes including requests for quotation, quotations, purchase orders, and delivery tracking, while a digital catalogue covers approximately 700–800 frequently requested spare parts.
The company plans to connect TOMMS with its spare-parts warehouse in Poland, creating a closer logistics node for European K9 fleets. Hanwha also intends to use maintenance and operational information to forecast parts demand and position selected components before operators reach the point of an urgent requirement.
TOMMS is not new to the K9 community. At the 2025 User Club in Poland, Hanwha presented the platform as an AI-supported maintenance and support system incorporating real-time equipment monitoring, remote support, and mobile services. The Estonia update gives the concept a more detailed procurement and logistics function around the growing installed base.
Predictive sustainment becomes more difficult as national K9 fleets acquire different configurations and upgrade states. Part numbers, software versions, modifications, ammunition interfaces, and maintenance schedules all have to remain aligned with the actual vehicle being supported if demand forecasts are to be useful rather than simply producing larger inventories.
Peter JK Bae, Senior Executive Vice President and Head of MRO Business Division at Hanwha Aerospace, said: “Every lesson learned in the field helps shape the next generation of K9 capabilities—from new operating concepts and mobility solutions to smarter sustainment.”
The K9 User Club was established to give operators a formal mechanism for sharing experience across training, operations, maintenance, and ammunition. Hanwha’s 2025 event in Poland drew representatives from the same core user community and included discussion of manned-unmanned teaming and autonomous artillery development, so the Tartu programme continues an established development route rather than introducing those themes for the first time.
Hanwha says more than 2,400 K9-family systems have now been ordered by more than ten countries. An installed base of that scale creates enough demand to support regional warehousing, common digital support systems, and continued investment in automation, but national requirements will also push individual fleets in different directions.
The engineering challenge is therefore commonality. Drone-enabled targeting, automated turrets, new wheeled vehicles, and predictive logistics can broaden the K9 family considerably, but the production and support advantage is preserved only if those developments remain connected to a sufficiently common technical baseline.
