As more experimental technologies are introduced onto the battlefield, small-scale engineers like Hnatok are hoping to influence the war’s outcome with Unmanned Ground Vehicles that carry weapons and explosives or conduct reconnaissance.
One of the main challenges to Ukraine’s ambitious summer counteroffensive has been the dense networks of anti-infantry and anti-tank mines laid by Russian troops. Losing an expendable UGV to a landmine is preferable to losing a soldier. “It’s this type of battlefield innovation at the tactical edge in Ukraine that’s going to eventual emerging solutions that can lend themselves to long-term survival in combat.”Ukraine’s community of grassroots defense innovators is a smorgasbord of young IT professionals and older Soviet-educated aerospace and tank engineers. Hnatok, dressed in scruffy black clothes and punk rocker boots, is neither.
It is also working on higher-tech, self-driving options such as the Marker UGV, which has demonstrated AI and machine learning capabilities and has been able to traverse through controlled environments without an operator, said Bendett.