Glimpse of a future robotic battlefield at Idex defence expo

At the Idex defence fair in Abu Dhabi, a massive range of robotic and remote control ground military systems was on display, from tiny buggies that drop off supplies or offload a single mine to full-scale armoured vehicles capable of autonomous driving with no crew.

For industry professionals, fully robotic battles may already be here – clashes with few soldiers in sight – despite challenges in fielding autonomous ground systems. Experts say a major draw for the systems is the high casualty rates seen in modern warfare, which could be lessened by advancing robotic systems soaking up enemy fire, forcing enemy troops to expose their positions by shooting at ground drones.

An unnerving twist to such an attack, recently seen in Ukraine, could involve simultaneous aerial attacks by drones, some of which can already pick out targets using computer vision. Ground systems are also highly versatile and often modular, meaning that we could soon see everything from unmanned vehicles firing massive anti-ship missiles, like the US Rogue Fires JLTV made by Oshkosh, to small systems dropping off medical supplies.

“We have 19 customers for Themis,” a representative from Milrem Robotics, an Estonian company specialising in unmanned ground equipment, told The National. Milrem, which is majority-owned by the UAE’s Edge Group, has worked with the Emirati company on one of the world’s largest unmanned ground system projects. Themis, a highly mobile tracked weapons system, can bristle with remotely fired guns, day or night sensors and even anti-aircraft missiles.

Its quiet operation and low profile make it hard to spot on the battlefield, and its modular design allows it to take on different roles over several kilometres. Roles can include evacuating casualties or delivering supplies close to the front line, where supply lorries make for large, easy targets.

With recent events in Ukraine, robots like Themis will be a common sight on the modern battlefield, as well as much larger combat vehicles like Milrem’s eight-wheel drive, turreted Havoc, which is designed to be controlled from nearby armoured vehicles, an approach known as human-machine teaming also explored by the British and US armies. Havoc can also navigate using computer vision, or AI.

It’s a growing trend, from vehicles that drive and potentially fight autonomously, like Rheinmetall’s Mission Master, to systems that help soldiers make quick decisions under fire. While radio-controlled systems sometimes have a range limited by hills and large buildings, Milrem's systems can be used with nearby dedicated control vehicles with radio links, including a dedicated NIMR mobile armoured control centre – made by the UAE company of the same name.

That ensures they can stay operating right on the front line, keeping the enemy off balance, and follows a pattern of armies envisioning their unmanned systems controlled by troops in nearby armoured vehicles, or able to move autonomously. A low profile, the Milrem spokesman says, is good for "silent watch", where the vehicle switches off its engine to reduce noise and its visibility to thermal cameras, but keeps monitoring the battlefield using its sensors.

The first robot attack?

Last month, defence analyst Tim Mak described what some believe may have been history’s first fully semi-automated attack with unmanned ground vehicles and aerial drones working together. The assault took place in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, and involved dozens of aerial and ground drones.

It appears to have been a long time in the making – although it’s not the first time flying drones and ground robots have fought in the same clash. Ukraine is said to have tested around 100 different types of UGVs, using them to deliver mines, evacuate casualties and in some cases fire weapons remotely at the enemy. Both Russia and Ukraine had armed unmanned vehicles before Russia’s 2022 invasion, but the war has spurred a race to innovate.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov has said his country is planning entire units of unmanned ground vehicles, meaning that entirely unmanned attacks could be increasingly common. One defence industry source working on unmanned ground systems, who wasn’t authorised to speak to the media, told The National at IDEX that manpower problems for countries like Ukraine are increasingly a challenge in modern war, amid worsening demographics in the industrialised world.

Israel, which has struggled to maintain mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in post-October 7 wars in Gaza and Lebanon, says its forces have mounted what they called “robotic combat missions” using unmanned M113 armoured personnel carriers and flying drones in Gaza. The M113s, widely considered obsolete, were used to deliver equipment and in some cases, simply filled with bombs to demolish buildings, a tactic also seen in Ukraine.

Using unmanned vehicles in urban environments and bomb-damaged landscapes is challenging, says Sam Cranny-Evans, an independent defence consultant and associate fellow at Rusi, a think tank.

“For a land platform, whether it's remotely controlled or autonomously navigating, it has to deal with the terrain,” he says. For automated or remotely controlled systems, Mr Cranny-Evans says it can be hard to assess areas of broken ground that could be craters that could trap the vehicle. Autonomous platforms also have “trained” computer vision, navigating with onboard 3D maps of urban areas.

One workaround for this is that the vehicles could switch between remotely operated and autonomously driven depending on the situation.

“If somebody flattens a building and you previously had 3D-mapped the area, that's no longer valid, right?” Mr Cranny-Evans says. Challenges like this are influencing how defence planners view the systems, from expendable and cheap unmanned systems that might only be able to travel 1-2km at best, to highly advanced, large and expensive systems with multiple all-weather, day-and-night sensors and robotic vision, like Havoc.

“We have many solutions,” says Hyonbin Hong, Vice President of Global Business at LIG Nex1, a South Korean defence corporation currently working on unmanned systems. “Through co-operation with the platform company, we believe we can develop a more customised solution for unmanned ground vehicles and manned-unmanned teaming operations. For example we are conducting a co-development and co-production project with the UAE,” he tells The National.

The uses for unmanned ground systems keep expanding, suggesting they are here to stay. Parson Engineering, which has historically made equipment for clearing minefields or other man-made enemy obstacles, as well as rivers, has adapted its equipment to experimental, large-scale US combat robots.

As with the advantage of keeping soldiers alive, the unmanned mine clearance robots can save on expensive, large systems like the Leopard 2R mine-clearing vehicle, which costs several million dollars. Many Leopard 2R’s supplied to Ukraine were destroyed during mine-clearing operations, with crew killed or wounded.

Mr Cranny-Evans says taking on this kind of life saving role for unmanned ground systems is absolutely critical.

“One way to reduce the impact of disabling a limited number of engineering assets is to disperse capability by equipping fighting vehicles with some level of capability that provides independent manoeuvre. Pearson Engineering has developed a range of equipment that achieves this without impacting the lethality or survivability of the combat vehicle,” a spokesperson for the company told The National.

“We’re seeing clear interest in exploring the art of the possible with regards to integrating engineering capability with uncrewed vehicles. Minefield breaching is a particularly dangerous task and the ability to remove people from harm’s way can only be a good thing.”