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This Is How the Remote-Controlled Drone Wars of the Future Might Look Like

For a while now, European countries have been trying to come up with something they call a standard unmanned ground system (UGS)—that would be a ground drone that could be used for a wide range of military operations.
Military vehicle towing Milrem UGV 13 photos
Photo: Milrem/Youtube
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The project is called iMUGS and includes the big names of the local defense industry, companies like Milrem, Safran, or Nexter Systems, among others.

The first phase of the iMUGS, which called for drones to be used alongside humans, ended recently. One of the companies involved, Milrem, together with the Estonian Defence Forces, conducted exercises based on two scenarios, with the THeMIS UGV taking center stage.

The THeMIS is a ground drone we’ve featured before, last when it was armed and shooting bullets like crazy at parked vans. But THeMIS is more of a platform, meaning that it can be used to carry weapons and shred enemies to bits, but also for observation.

In this latter configuration, the UGV drone is not armed with machine guns but with another drone of the aerial kind.

As per the scenario of the Estonian exercise (video below), the UGV is towed to the desired location by a heavily camouflaged vehicle. From there, it is remotely operated until it reaches an area of interest.

Once parked under cover behind a bush, THeMIS releases the tethered drone, which flies up and begins scanning the environment until it finds what it is looking for, an enemy position. Once it does that, the soldiers who are controlling it are able to call in an artillery strike and completely obliterate the enemy.

If anything, this short video only goes to show what we are to expect from future wars: remotely-controlled, uncrewed machines, playing their part in battles alongside humans and crewed vehicles, capable of always giving one side the upper hand over the other.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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