TL;DRForterra deployed 100+ autonomous ATVs in Ukraine since October, completing 1,100 missions and 52 casualty evacuations. The largest US combat UGV deployment.
Forterra, a US builder of autonomous vehicles, revealed that more than 100 of its self-driving ATVs have been deployed in combat zones in Ukraine for the past nine months. The company says it is the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by any US defence tech company. Since arriving in October, the vehicles have driven more than 2,500 miles across more than 1,100 missions, carried 777,440 pounds of cargo, and completed 52 casualty evacuations.
The Lancer vehicles are based on Polaris ATVs fitted with a custom sensor and compute stack. They are gas-powered and can carry 750 kilograms, three times the capacity of Ukraine’s own battery-powered UGVs. “This UGV for logistics and just maintaining our defence is the most important UGV in Ukraine,” a Ukrainian soldier told TechCrunch. “It’s fucking fantastic, and we are dying to get more.”
The deployment was funded by US defence dollars as part of the effort to transform the US military through its support of Ukrainian resistance. Aerial drones have created extensive no-go zones where surveillance leads to death from above, driving Ukrainian strategists toward ground-based autonomy. Some Lancers have been lost in combat, particularly when stuck in deep mud where Russian forces can target them. Adding a Starlink antenna was the modification that made the vehicles operationally useful. Ukraine’s unmanned warfare industry is already producing billion-dollar companies, and the Forterra deployment adds a US hardware layer to that ecosystem.
