The Largest Deployment of Autonomous Ground Vehicles in Combat by a US Defense Tech Company
Forterra, a US builder of autonomous vehicles, has revealed that more than 100 of its self-driving ATVs have been deployed in conflict zones in Ukraine for the past nine months. This marks the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by any US defense tech company.
Source: techcrunch.com
The deployment is part of a growing effort to transform the US military through its support of Ukrainian resistance to Russian invaders. While aerial drones have garnered much of the attention in the fight, the dynamics they’ve created have led Ukrainian strategists to seek ground-based autonomy as well.
The Limitations of Ground-Based Autonomy
Ukraine is already building its own uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) to help move supplies and munitions, or evacuate wounded soldiers. However, these vehicles are typically battery-powered and can only 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, making them more versatile and useful.
Despite their capabilities, Forterra’s Lancer vehicles are not yet fully autonomous. Ukrainian soldiers have mainly been teleoperating the vehicles in combat zones, in part because they’re too valuable to lose and in part because autonomous vehicles aren’t quite ready for the realities of war.
“There’s nowhere to hide,” Sergeant Major Corey Wilkens, who leads a program developing autonomous vehicles and tactics for the US Army, explained. “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.”
The Benefits of Ground-Based Autonomy
Forterra’s Lancer 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. The vehicles have also seen the limits of autonomy, as Ukrainian soldiers have mainly been teleoperating them in combat zones.
“The bottom line is that this UGV for logistics and just maintaining our defense is the most important UGV in Ukraine,” a Ukrainian soldier explained. “It’s fucking fantastic, and we are dying to get more.”
Forterra has learned some useful lessons from the deployment, including about electronic warfare, updating their software from afar, and ensuring their vehicles don’t break down. The company is now better positioned to compete for lucrative national security contracts.
The Future of Ground-Based Autonomy
Forterra is working on how to combine the kinds of algorithms that gave us self-driving cars with newer generative AI software that allows machines to react to their surroundings in a generalized way. As with other autonomous systems, one of the key obstacles is gathering the right data.
“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,” Scott Sanders, Forterra’s chief growth officer, explained. “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.”
Forterra is not the only company working on ground-based autonomy. Competitors like Scout AI, Field AI, and Overland AI are also trialling UGVs with the US military.
