Military Unmanned Ground Drones Can Now Follow People Around

Over in Europe, one of the companies working hard at developing autonomous systems is Estonian company Milrem Robotics. One of its most high-profile products is the THeMIS, a family of ground drones that can fulfill a variety of roles.

The THeMIS is presently at the center of a continent-wide effort meant to create a standard unmanned ground system (UGS). Called iMUGS, it sees Milrem racing others, like Safran or Nexter Systems, for the chance to win a possible contract.

We’ve seen the THeMIS at work before, even in some type of autonomous modes, but this is the first time Milrem showed the world how the ground drone behaves when using its follow-me, return home, and point-to-point navigation on an off-road course abilities – the so-called intelligent functions.

For the demonstration, Milrem used two THeMIS UGVs. First, they were tasked with following a human operator walking along a path with various obstacles. Then, they were made to follow each other from point A to point B, with the lead UGV controlled remotely by a human operator, and the one trailing behind moving autonomously.

A short video of the test is available at the bottom of this text. It shows the machines in the wild, doing all that is described above, and giving us a glimpse of what the not-so-distant future could bring. And imagine these platforms not as they’re shown here, but carrying stuff like a remotely operated 7,62 mm machine gun.