A Ukrainian military unit said on Wednesday that it successfully sent a ground robot on a 12-mile supply run, using AI to navigate for nearly the entirety of the mission.
The Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment of the 2nd Corps, or Khartiia Corps, of Ukraine’s National Guard announced the completion of the autonomous logistics mission in a statement shared with Business Insider, calling it the “first of its kind under combat conditions.”
The unit said that the robot completed 93% of its 20-kilometer trip on its own, delivering cargo and returning to its starting point autonomously, with an operator intervening for only 1.4 kilometers of the journey.
Before departure, a separate ground robot equipped with light detection and ranging technology, or LiDAR, mapped the route and terrain in 3D. Cameras on the supply bot detected obstacles while AI-powered navigation guided the robot.
“This mission has shown that autonomous ground systems are already capable of operating in real combat conditions,” said Andrii Kopach, who serves as commander of the Lava Regiment’s Unmanned Ground Systems Battalion.
“The biggest change is that the operator is no longer a driver but a dispatcher,” he said. “Instead of controlling the vehicle every second, they monitor its movement and step in only when needed.”
Kopach said that the unit’s next ambitions are to enable a single operator to oversee multiple robots at once and expand autonomous missions to casualty evacuations. He added that more AI-powered ground robots would reduce dependence on “a constant control link,” such as Starlink, a satellite internet service which recently saw major speed disruptions in Ukraine, negatively affecting front-line operations.
Ground robots have become an important tool for Ukraine, carrying out resupply, casualty evacuation, and assault missions. The Ukrainian military, and Western military leaders studying lessons from the war, hope that increased reliance on ground robots and aerial drones, as well as the increased integration of AI capabilities into these systems, can help reduce the risks to the troops who would otherwise perform those missions on increasingly dangerous battlefields.
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