Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces
"We are fighting a huge country, and they don't have any resource limits.""We understand that we cannot spend a lot of human lives.""War is mathematics."Andrii Denysenko, head, UkrPrototyp, defence startup"Squads of robots ... will become logistics devices, tow trucks, minelayers and deminers, as well as self-destructive robots.""The first robots are already proving their effectiveness on the battlefield."Ukraine government page
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| Engineers of design and production bureau ‘UkrPrototyp’ work on new parts for a ground drone The Associated Press. |
Ukraine's deputy prime minister for digital transformation encourages citizens of Ukraine to take free online course to learn how to assemble aerial drones at home. This is the wave of the future.
It is Ukraine's hope of survival against a dynamic and sinister force much larger and much better equipped than they are, which has been launched by Moscow in a territorial dispute without legal status, but backed by an insatiable demand for Ukraine to stand down and allow itself to be fragmented, and claimed as the sovereign possession of a neighbour prepared to continue its scorched-earth policy to achieve its goal of total domination.
Ukraine's manpower shortages, its dire need for more updated and quite simply more ammunition to enable it to continue countering the overwhelming military odds it faces compels it to look for solutions elsewhere than the conventional. Given international assistance that is tiring and losing its enthusiasm leading to infrequent aid it can no longer depend upon, Ukraine has found a strategic solution to lead it away from desperation back to hope.
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| Serhii, chief engineer of design and production bureau ‘UkrPrototyp’, works on 3D model of a a car-sized 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype drone, in the north of Ukraine The Associated Press. |
Across the country in hundreds of hidden workshops contained in abandoned warehouses or factory basements an ecosystem of laboratories are innovating in the creation of robot artillery in the hope that such an army will save Ukraine's soldiers and civilians from the death traps of unrelenting Russian missiles and drones.
Startups, an estimated 250 of them, are busy in the creation of killing machines, their secret locations easily mistaken for rural car repair shops. At a startup calledUkrPrototyp, employees are able to assemble an unmanned ground vehicle in four days at a company shed. Its cost is roughly $35,000, about ten percent of the cost of an imported model.
Partitioned into small rooms for welding and bodywork, the site makes fibreglass cargo beds, spray-painted gun-green, fitted with basic electronics, battery-powered engines, off-the-shelf cameras, and thermal sensors.
Dozens of new unmanned air, ground and marine vehicles are being assessed by the military, being produced by the startup sector with production methods not the least bit resembling those of giant Western defence companies, for a fourth branch of the Ukraine military -- the Unmanned Systems Forces -- which has been established to join the army, navy and air force.
Articles in defence magazines or online videos to produce cut-price platforms inspire the startup engineers. Smart components and weapons are later add-ons. Inspiration and Innovation are the order of the day in an atmosphere of renewed hope and determination to defend and to fend off an implacable enemy.
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| Andrii Denysenko, CEO of design and production bureau “UkrPrototyp”, stands by Odyssey, an 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) ground drone prototype, at a corn field in northern Ukraine, Friday, June 28, 2024 The Associated Press. |
Labels: Design and Innovation, Robotic Army, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine Self-Defence
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, July 18, 2024
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