U.S. autonomous-vehicle company Forterra has revealed that more than 100 of its four-wheel-drive autonomous vehicles have been operating in conflict zones inside Ukraine for nine months, in what the company considers the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by a U.S. defense-technology company.
The mission is funded with U.S. defense funds, as part of growing efforts to leverage support for Ukraine’s resistance in developing technologies that could change how the U.S. armed forces operate. While drones have attracted most of the attention in the war, their intensive use has created areas that are difficult to traverse or monitor because of the risk of aerial targeting, prompting Ukrainian strategists to seek autonomous ground solutions.
Greater Payload and Extensive Field Experience
Lancer vehicles are based on commercial Polaris ATVs and equipped with a dedicated suite of sensors and computing capabilities. Unlike the unmanned ground vehicles developed locally by Ukraine, which typically run on batteries and carry no more than 250 kilograms, Lancer runs on fuel and can transport 750 kilograms of payload.
Since arriving in Ukraine last October, the vehicles have traveled more than 2,500 miles over more than 1,100 missions, transported a total of 777,440 pounds of payload, and carried out 88 casualty-evacuation operations. Some vehicles were lost during the fighting, particularly when they became stuck in deep mud or in exposed terrain that enabled Russian forces to target them.
A Ukrainian soldier who worked with the vehicles said their use in logistics and defensive support represents the most important application of unmanned ground vehicles in Ukraine, adding that Ukrainian units want more of them. Initial impressions were not equally positive, as the vehicles initially appeared to be designed more to meet the requirements of the U.S. military. However, modifications, including the addition of a Starlink satellite-internet antenna, increased their practical value in the field.
Remote Control Reveals the Limits of Autonomy
Despite Lancer’s ability to navigate autonomously across varied terrain, Ukrainian soldiers generally operate it by remote control in combat zones. This is partly driven by a desire to avoid losing vehicles that remain high-value assets, as well as by the fact that autonomous-driving systems have not yet reached a level that enables them to identify unexpected enemy forces and respond appropriately.
Scott Sanders, Forterra’s chief growth officer and a former U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer, said that testing technologies under combat conditions reveals what cannot be known before confronting the realities of the battlefield. The company is working to combine autonomous-driving algorithms used in cars with generative software that allows machines to interpret their surroundings in a more general way, while the collection of appropriate data remains one of the main challenges.
Lessons and Opportunities in the Defense Market
Forterra says it has gained experience from the deployment in electronic warfare, remote software updates, maneuvering under difficult conditions, and reducing vehicle failures. The company believes these capabilities could improve its position in competing for national-security contracts. Forterra began working on autonomous vehicles 20 years ago and has raised more than $500 million in venture-capital funding, according to the article.
Other companies are working on similar challenges, including Scout AI, which raised $100 million earlier this year to train foundation models and develop autonomous platforms for the military, as well as Field AI and Overland AI, which are testing autonomous ground vehicles with the U.S. military.
However, the economic aspect represents a major obstacle. Lancer vehicles benefit from Polaris’s commercial supply chain, which helps keep their cost relatively low within their category, but they remain high-value assets compared with drones, which can be deployed more freely. Ukrainian users therefore are calling for a lower price, arguing that attrition is a constant part of the battlefield and that vehicle losses make providing larger numbers of them at lower cost essential.