Autonomous Ground Vehicles Enter Combat in Ukraine
Forterra, a US builder of autonomous vehicles, revealed that more than 100 of its self-driving ATVs have been deployed in conflict zones in Ukraine for the past nine months. The company believes this is the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by any US defense tech company.
Scott Sanders, Forterra’s chief growth officer and a former US Marine officer, told TechCrunch: ‘I believe this to be true of every defense technology that’s ever been created—until you hit the realities of combat, you’re just not going to know.’
Military Context and Need for Ground Autonomy
Funded by US defense dollars, the mission is part of a growing effort to transform the US military through its support of Ukrainian resistance to Russian invaders. Aerial drones have created extensive no-go zones where surveillance can lead to death from above, driving Ukrainian strategists to seek ground-based autonomy as well.
Sergeant Major Corey Wilkens, who leads a program developing autonomous vehicles and tactics for the US Army, explained: ‘There’s nowhere to hide. You become very, very vulnerable to be able to be attacked by first-person view drones, other sorts of drones dropping munitions, artillery, mortar, the full range of things that they have.’
Forterra’s Lancer Vehicles: Specifications and Performance
Ukraine has been building its own uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) to help move supplies and munitions or evacuate wounded soldiers, but these are typically battery-powered and can carry up to 250 kilograms. Forterra’s Lancer vehicles, based on Polaris ATVs and equipped with a custom-built sensor and compute stack, are gas-powered and can carry 750 kilograms of cargo.
‘The bottom line is that this UGV for logistics and just maintaining our defense is the most important UGV in Ukraine,’ a Ukrainian soldier who worked with the vehicles told TechCrunch (identity withheld for security reasons). ‘It’s fucking fantastic, and we are dying to get more.’
Initial reception was mixed; modifications such as adding a Starlink satellite internet antenna made the vehicles a huge value add. Since arriving in Ukraine last October, the vehicles have driven more than 2,500 miles across more than 1,100 missions, carrying 777,440 pounds of total weight and completing 52 casualty evacuations. Some vehicles have been lost in combat, particularly when stuck in deep mud or terrain where Russian forces could target them.
Lessons Learned and Limitations
Forterra has gained insights into electronic warfare, software updates from afar, maneuvering in challenging conditions, and vehicle reliability. The company, which has raised more than $500 million in venture funding from funds like XYZ Venture Capital and Moore Strategic Partners, is now better positioned to compete for lucrative contracts.
However, the vehicles have mainly been teleoperated in combat zones because they are too valuable to lose and autonomous technology is not yet ready for the realities of war. While they can navigate autonomously across diverse terrain, they cannot identify unexpected enemy forces and react appropriately. ‘We actually need to be able to respond to the enemy threats, live, while it’s in front of the enemy, which the autonomy doesn’t know how to do yet,’ the Ukrainian soldier explained.
Future Development and Competition
Forterra, which began work on autonomous vehicles 20 years ago, is working on combining self-driving car algorithms with generative AI that allows machines to react to surroundings in a generalized way. ‘There’s a lot of things you have to do that aren’t available in an open source model because they’re not things that humans do, whether that’s figuring out how to navigate a minefield or operating a weapon system,’ Sanders said. ‘You need to be able to turn the dials and some things more of a classical robotics approach, and then leverage AI where you need to.’
Competitors like Field AI and Overland AI are also trialling UGVs with the US military. Wilkens stated, ‘Ground autonomy is achievable now and we’ve seen it.’ Scott Philips, Forterra’s chief innovation officer, visited a Ukrainian unit’s operations center, observing manual steps, data re-entry, and areas for automation. ‘That’s the kind of ground truth you can’t get from a slide deck,’ he told TechCrunch.
The Ukrainians have issued one major challenge: make the vehicles cheaper. Forterra’s Lancers are not expensive for their category due to using Polaris’ commercial supply chain, but they are still too valuable to be deployed as freely as UAVs. ‘Attrition is just a fact of this battlefield, and we have lost a few at this point, and it hurt, and we need more, and therefore we need them cheaper,’ the Ukrainian soldier said.