Anyone following the war between Ukraine and Russia can see how quickly the way war is waged is changing. Aerial drones are now indispensable: they reconnoitre, correct artillery fire and attack targets. But alongside the drones in the air, a second revolution is under way: that of ground robots. Unmanned, often roughly finished and rarely futuristic-looking, but effective. And above all: usable in large numbers.
Where drones in the air are now a familiar sight, that is much less true of drones on the ground. Yet they are being used more and more. Think of simple tracked vehicles with a machine gun, an anti-tank weapon or simply a load of explosives. Systems such as DevDroid’s ground drones or platforms such as the UVG T700 with a Browning machine gun show that a high-tech look is not a requirement. They are not the most modern, but they do what they are meant to do. And in a large-scale conflict, that is crucial.
The war in Ukraine shows one thing crystal clear: numbers matter. A perfect system that is scarce often does not outweigh a simpler system that is available in large numbers. Many ground robots are produced in a relatively short time, sometimes even partly improvised. That suits a conflict in which losses are replaced quickly and innovation cannot wait years for test programmes and tenders.
Although footage is already circulating of these drones being used against Russian positions, it will not be shown here. Their existence alone is enough to make clear that we are in a transitional phase. The war is changing. Not only through new weapons, but through a different division of roles between human and machine.
This development has also been followed in the Netherlands for years. Within 13 Light Brigade, the Milrem ground drone has been tested for some time, an unmanned tracked vehicle that can be used for reconnaissance, transport or support. Defence has about ten of these systems. Yet there has not yet been a broad breakthrough within the armed forces.
That has mainly to do with the complexity of cooperation on the battlefield. A ground robot must be able to move along with infantry and tanks. But what happens when unexpected obstacles appear, communications drop out or the situation changes very quickly? A human soldier can improvise; a robot depends on sensors, links and pre-set logic. That makes integration difficult, especially in chaotic fighting.
Image: THeMIS robotics
Still, it is striking that Defence is already clearly preparing for a future in which this does become normal. The CV90 infantry fighting vehicles and the new Leopard 2A8 tanks are designed with the idea that they must be able to work with unmanned systems in the future. That means not only that they support drones, but that they become tactically interwoven with them: as a scout, as extra firepower or as an extension of the manned vehicle.
That development does not stop on the ground. We see the same pattern in the air. The F-35 fighter jet will in the near future work together with drones, so-called “loyal wingmen”. These unmanned aircraft can fly far ahead, deploy sensors or even draw enemy air defences, while the pilot keeps control from a distance. What happens there is in fact the same as on the ground: the human becomes the commander, the machine becomes the executor.
And this is where artificial intelligence comes in. Until now, that was exactly what many of these systems lacked. Without AI, ground robots were cumbersome, dependent on constant control and vulnerable to failures. With rapid progress in AI, that picture is changing. Robots can navigate on their own ever better, recognise targets and respond to unexpected situations. That makes them not only more effective, but also easier to deploy alongside human units.
The conclusion is inescapable: ground robots are no longer a thing of the future. They are already here, they are being used and they get better every month. They may not always look modern; they may be rough and simple. But they fit perfectly into a new reality of warfare in which speed, numbers and smart cooperation between human and machine are decisive. The question is not whether these robots will get a permanent place on the battlefield, but how quickly.
