The first US autonomous ground vehicles fight in Ukraine

ForterraAn American company specializing in manufacturing autonomous vehicles revealed today that more than 100 of its self-driving four-wheel drive vehicles have been deployed in conflict zones in Ukraine over the past nine months, in what the company believes is the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by any American defense technology company.

“I think this applies to every defense technology ever created — until it hits the realities of combat, you wouldn’t know,” Scott Sanders, chief growth officer at Forterra and a former US Marine Corps officer, told TechCrunch.

The mission, funded by US defense funds, is part of a growing effort to transform the US military through its support of the Ukrainian resistance to Russian invaders. While drones have captured much attention in the fighting, the dynamics they have created — vast no-go zones where surveillance can lead to death from above — have prompted Ukrainian strategists to seek autonomy on the ground as well.

“There’s nowhere to hide,” explained Sergeant Corey Wilkins, who leads a program to develop autonomous vehicles and tactics for the US Army. “You become so vulnerable that you are able to be attacked by (first-person shooter drones), other types of drones that drop munitions, artillery, mortars, a whole host of things that they have.”

Ukraine is already building its own unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to help transport supplies and munitions, or evacuate wounded soldiers, but they are typically battery-powered and can only carry up to 250 kilograms, according to a Ukrainian army soldier who worked with the vehicles and who TechCrunch did not identify for security reasons.

Forterra’s Lancer is based on Polaris ATVs and equipped with a specially designed sensor and computing stack, is gas-powered and can carry 750 kilograms of cargo, making it even more versatile and useful. “The bottom line is that this non-ground vehicle for logistics and just maintaining our defense is the most important non-ground vehicle in Ukraine,” the soldier said. “It’s amazing, and we can’t wait for more.”

They didn’t feel that way at first. The Ukrainian armed forces have had mixed experiences with Western contractors bringing new technology to the battle, and at first Forterra’s offerings seemed little geared to the evolving requirements of the U.S. military. Modifying the vehicle to suit the situation – particularly by adding a Starlink satellite internet antenna – made it a significant value-add.

Since arriving in Ukraine last October, the vehicles have traveled more than 2,500 miles across more than 1,100 missions, carried 777,440 pounds of gross weight and completed 52 casualty evacuations. Some of them were lost in combat, especially if they got stuck in deep mud or other terrain where Russian forces could target them at leisure.

Forterra has learned some useful lessons – about electronic warfare, updating its software from afar, how to maneuver in difficult conditions, and ensuring its vehicles don’t break down. The company, which has raised more than $500 million in venture funding from funds such as XYZ Venture Capital and Moore Strategy Partners, is now better positioned to compete for profitable companies. National security contracts.

They’ve also seen the limits of autonomy: Right now, Ukrainian soldiers mainly operate remote vehicles in combat zones, partly because they’re too valuable to lose, and partly because autonomous vehicles aren’t quite ready for the realities of war.

While, for example, vehicles can navigate autonomously across diverse terrain, they are not quite at the point where they can identify unexpected enemy forces and respond appropriately. The Ukrainian soldier explained: “We actually need to be able to respond to enemy threats, directly, while we are in front of the enemy, which the Autonomous Administration does not know how to do yet.”

Forterra, which started working on self-driving vehicles 20 years ago, is working on how to combine the kinds of algorithms that gave us self-driving cars with newer artificial intelligence software that allows machines to interact with their surroundings in a generic way. As with other autonomous systems, one of the main hurdles is collecting the right data.

“There are 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 weapons system,” Sanders told TechCrunch. “You should be able to manage things and some things in a classic robotics style, and then leverage AI wherever you want.”

Competitors in this space are solving similar challenges, Such as scouting artificial intelligencewhich raised $100 million earlier this year to train enterprise models and develop a range of autonomous platforms for the military that include unmanned ground vehicles. Other startups such as Field AI and Overland AI are experimenting with unmanned ground vehicles with the US military.

Even with the restrictions imposed on non-land vehicles, American military experts are convinced that the time has come to invest in these tools. “Terrestrial autonomy is possible now that we have seen that,” Wilkins said.

Scott Phillips, Forterra’s chief innovation officer, visited the unit’s Ukrainian operations center to see the vehicles in action firsthand, earning the unit’s respect for visiting an area within range of Russian attacks.

“What surprised me most was seeing exactly where the connections were: what steps were still manual, where data needed to be manually re-entered or re-verified, and where the team had already found ways to automate or speed things up,” Phillips told TechCrunch. “This is the kind of ground truth that you can’t get from a slide deck because it shows you exactly where better tools can take pressure off the people doing this work in real time.”

One of the challenges posed by the Ukrainians: making it cheaper. Forterra’s Lancers aren’t expensive for their class, thanks to reliance on Polaris’ commercial supply chain for the vehicle itself, but they’re still too valuable to be deployed freely like drones.

“Attrition is just a reality on this battlefield, and we’ve lost a few of them at this point, and it hurts, and we need more, and therefore we need them at a cheaper price,” the Ukrainian soldier told TechCrunch.