Forterra’s Autonomous Vehicles in Ukraine: A New Frontier in Defense Technology
Forterra, a U.S. autonomous vehicle maker, today revealed that more than 100 of its autonomous ATVs have been deployed to conflict zones in Ukraine over the past nine months, in what the company says is the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by a U.S. defense technology company.
Understanding the Combat Realities with Autonomous Technology
“I think this is true of every defense technology that’s ever been created: Until you understand the realities of combat, you just won’t know it,” Scott Sanders, Forterra’s chief growth officer and former U.S. Navy officer, told TechCrunch.
Transforming Military Strategy with Ground Autonomy
Funded by U.S. defense dollars, the mission is part of a growing effort to transform the U.S. military by supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russian invaders. Although aerial drones have attracted much of the attention in the fight, the dynamic they have created — vast no-go zones where surveillance can lead to death from above — has led Ukrainian strategists to seek autonomy on the ground as well.
“There’s nowhere to hide,” said Sergeant Major Corey Wilkens, who leads a program to develop autonomous vehicles and tactics for the U.S. Army. “You become very, very vulnerable when you can be attacked by [first-person view drones]other kinds of drones dropping munitions, artillery, mortars, the whole range of things they have.
Versatility and Utility of Forterra’s Lancer Vehicles
Ukraine already builds its own unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to help move supplies and ammunition, or evacuate injured soldiers, but they are typically battery-powered and can only carry up to 250 kilograms, according to a Ukrainian army soldier who has worked with the vehicles and whom TechCrunch will not identify for security reasons.
Forterra’s Lancer vehicles, based on Polaris ATVs and equipped with a custom sensor and compute stack, are gas-powered and can carry 750 kilograms of cargo, making them more versatile and useful. “At the end of the day, this UGV for logistics and just maintaining our defense is the most important UGV in Ukraine,” the soldier said. “It’s fucking fantastic, and we’re dying for more.”
Adapting Western Technology to the Ukrainian Battlefield
At first, they didn’t feel that way. The Ukrainian armed forces have had mixed experiences with Western contractors bringing new technologies to combat, and at first Forterra’s offerings seemed a little too tailored to the U.S. military’s high-end requirements. Modifying the vehicle to suit the situation, including adding a Starlink satellite internet antenna, made it a huge value-add.
Since arriving in Ukraine last October, the vehicles have traveled more than 2,500 miles during more than 1,100 missions, carrying 777,440 pounds of total weight and completing 52 casualty evacuations. Some have been lost in combat, particularly if they have become stuck in deep mud or other terrain where Russian forces can target them at leisure.
A Forterra Lancer that met its end on the battlefield in Ukraine. Image credits: Forterra / Forterra
Learning from the Battlefield
Forterra learned valuable lessons: about electronic warfare, updating its software remotely, 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 capital from funds including XYZ Venture Capital and Moore Strategic Partners, is now better positioned to compete for lucrative national security contracts.
They’ve also seen the limits of autonomy: For now, Ukrainian soldiers mostly teleoperate 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.
The Path Toward Advanced Autonomy
Even if, for example, vehicles can navigate autonomously across varied terrain, they are not yet at the point where they can identify unexpected enemy forces and respond appropriately. “Indeed, we must be able to respond to enemy threats, live, while they are in front of the enemy, which autonomy does not yet know how to do,” explained the Ukrainian soldier.
Forterra, which began working on autonomous vehicles 20 years ago, seeks to combine the kinds of algorithms that gave us self-driving cars with new generative AI software that allows machines to respond to their environments in a generalized way. As with other autonomous systems, one of the biggest 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 it’s figuring out how to navigate a minefield or [operating] a weapons system,” Sanders told TechCrunch. “You need to be able to turn the dials and some things more of a classic robotic approach and then leverage AI where you need it.”
Challenges and Opportunities in Ground Autonomy
Competitors in this space are solving similar challenges, like Scout AI, which raised $100 million earlier this year to train baseline models and develop a suite of autonomous platforms for the military that includes UGVs. Other startups like Field AI and Overland AI are testing UGVs with the US military.
Even with the limitations of UGVs, U.S. military experts are convinced that it is time to invest in these tools. “Ground autonomy is now achievable and we’ve seen it,” Wilkens said.
Real-Time Insights from the Battlefield
Scott Philips, director of innovation at Forterra, visited a Ukrainian unit’s operations center to see the vehicles in action, earning the unit’s respect for visiting an area within range of Russian attacks.
“What struck me most was seeing exactly where the seams are: which steps are still manual, where data needs to be re-entered or double-checked by hand, and where the team has already found ways to automate or speed things up,” Philips told TechCrunch. “It’s the kind of ground truth you can’t get from a slideshow, because it shows you precisely where better tools could take pressure off the people doing this work in real time.”
The Cost Challenge and Future Prospects
A challenge launched by the Ukrainians: make things cheaper. Forterra Lancers are inexpensive for their class, thanks to their reliance on Polaris’ commercial supply chain for the vehicle itself, but they are still too valuable to deploy as freely as drones.
“Attrition is just a fact on this battlefield, and we lost a few at this point, and that hurt us, and we need more of them, and so we need them cheaper,” the Ukrainian soldier told TechCrunch.
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