Forterra says more than 100 self-driving ATVs are deployed in Ukraine

In short: Forterra says it has deployed more than 100 self-driving off-road vehicles in Ukraine, mostly to move supplies and evacuate wounded soldiers.

What happened

Forterra, a US company that builds autonomous vehicles, told TechCrunch that more than 100 of its self-driving ATVs have been used in conflict zones in Ukraine for the past nine months. The company says this is its largest combat deployment so far.

These vehicles, called Lancer, are based on Polaris ATVs. Forterra says they are gas-powered and can carry up to 750 kilograms of cargo. That is about three large adults, or a heavy load of supplies.

Forterra says the vehicles arrived in Ukraine last October. Since then, they have driven more than 2,500 miles across more than 1,100 missions, carried a total of 777,440 pounds, and completed 52 casualty evacuations. Some vehicles have been lost, including when they got stuck in deep mud and were then easier to target.

Forterra and Ukrainian forces have also made changes in the field. One example mentioned was adding a Starlink satellite internet antenna, which helps keep a connection when normal networks are unreliable.

Why it matters

A lot of people think “self-driving” means fully independent. In this case, the report says Ukrainian soldiers are often teleoperating the vehicles, meaning they drive them remotely like a very expensive remote-control car. The deployment still matters because it shows what these machines can and cannot do under real combat conditions, and it highlights how quickly modern wars are pushing new types of robotics.

Source: TechCrunch AI