EUR: The fierce European competition over UGVs

BLUF: European-made unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) are leading the Western market in their sector, replacing soldiers for dangerous tasks like moving cargo and evacuating casualties under fire. 

Estonia’s Milrem Robotics and Germany’s ARX Robotics are competing for the role of market leader, while Germany’s Quantum Systems—which introduced its first UGV in February—will launch a new frontline ground robot in the coming weeks.

The German armed forces have opened an innovation center for defense SMEs. The idea is to speed up procurement, an officer told The Arsenal.

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger sparked a furore in Ukraine with seemingly dismissive remarks about the country’s military drone production. The Arsenal unpacks it with Ukrainian analysts frustrated with those who underestimate their country—including an MP who says Papperger is “partly right.”

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Tallinn-based Milrem Robotics and Munich-based ARX Robotics both claim to have the largest deployment of military unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) of any Western company.

There isn’t enough public data to say which firm has it right, but either way, Europeans are at the forefront of military ground robots. 

“The FPV threat is like gunpowder; that genie is out of the bottle,” Patrick Shepherd, Milrem’s Helsinki-based chief sales officer, told The Arsenal —a reference to how much aerial strike drones have changed warfare. 

“We're going to fight this and face this everywhere,” he added.

That’s why machines are increasingly taking on logistics tasks.

“It’s the proliferation of FPVs and that constant surveillance of the battlefield,” said David Roberts, CEO of ARX’s British subsidiary, in an interview with The Arsenal. “The kill zone is increasing in dimensions as the technology develops.”

In Ukraine, that equates to roughly 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) on either side of the front line, said Roberts. 

“The whole point of it is to remove people from that dangerous area,” he said.

The replacement? In many cases, it will be UGVs.

Although these systems have autonomous capabilities, Ukrainian forces prefer remote control or ‘teleoperation’ where possible, said Roberts. 

Ukrainian pilots have told The Arsenal that simplicity is preferable to complex systems. Technically complicated systems work great under ideal circumstances but break down under the chaos of modern warfare.

“There is the option to do waypoint navigation on these, with obstacle avoidance, but I think that teleoperation gives a greater feel of control and situational awareness,” Roberts told The Arsenal.

To make teleoperation possible amid Russian signal jamming, ARX’s systems use a mixture of dual-band radio frequency, LTE and Starlink. 

When there’s jamming of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)—a problem regardless of how the vehicle operates—the robots seeing action in Ukraine navigate by sensor data and dead-reckoning.

There are better ways, but “that adds cost,” said Roberts.

The main UGV that Milrem supplies to Ukraine is THeMIS (the Greek goddess of justice). It’s a waist-high tracked vehicle, long and wide enough to fit two people on stretchers side-by-side inside an armored recess. 

Alternatively, that recess can be used for cargo or replaced with other payloads, such as an armature for clearing mines or remote weapons systems.

THeMIS has a top speed of 20 km/h and can operate for up to 15 hours, “depending on load, weather and terrain,” Shepherd told The Arsenal.

The company also manufactures larger, faster combat vehicles, such as VECTOR, which can reach 80 km/h, according to the company’s website.

ARX’s principal deployment in Ukraine is Gereon (a 4th-century German saint). The knee-high robot carries payloads on its top, such as a framed stretcher for CASEVAC or a NATO-standard 1.2m x 1m pallet for cargo, and can reach speeds of about 30 km/h.

“It's designed to be small enough to fit into the back of a standard military vehicle,” Roberts told The Arsenal. 

The company is also supplying Ukraine with electro-optical and infrared payloads that can be fitted to Gereon for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), though Roberts said “the use cases for those at the moment are still relatively small.”

ARX also produces a larger, faster, wheeled cargo UGV with a combustion engine, called Hector (the Crown Prince of Troy in the Iliad). Roberts said Hector can reach 120 km/h.

In Ukraine, UGVs tend to get smaller and cheaper the closer you get to the front line, said Hendrik Kramer, head of ground domain at German defense tech unicorn Quantum Systems. 

The company, based in Gilching near Munich, is better known for its aerial reconnaissance drones. It recently acquired autonomous ground logistics startup Fernride—which Kramer founded—and unveiled the Mandrill UGV in February. 

Mandrill is a heavy-duty wheeled cargo vehicle that can reach speeds up to 100 km/h. For frontline use, Quantum Systems plans to unveil a new UGV in the coming weeks, Kramer told The Arsenal. 

It will be a “tracked vehicle for ‘last mile’ operations,” Kramer said. “This needs to be as cheap as possible since it is built for one to two missions. It doesn’t need to be fancy; it just needs to work.”

The company also produces the Mosaic ground autonomy kit, an array of sensors and actuators that can be used to convert any road vehicle—such as a large cargo truck—into a UGV. Large autonomous trucks would be used even further from the combat zone, such as to move supplies across Germany, said Kramer.

Milrem’s THeMIS tends to be used between the rear and the third line of defense, Shepherd said. 

“We’re not on the first line of defense. That’s an environment where they’re using much lower-cost systems that are one-way drones,” he told The Arsenal.

The smaller Gereon goes all the way up to the front line, said Roberts. “If it's being used for ISR or for combat, then clearly it's being used beyond the front line.”

The largest share of UGVs in Ukraine is Ukrainian-made, said Roberts. They’re cheaper, but “would not be acceptable in the NATO supply chain,” largely because of Chinese components.

“Ukraine has a great industry here, and clearly we’re working closely with a number of really good Ukrainian companies,” said Roberts. “But I think post-conflict, there will need to be a pivot, or a change in the supply chain, in order to allow Ukraine to export into the Western market.”

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Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have opened an “innovation center” in Erding, Bavaria, in southern Germany. It is aimed at accelerating defense innovation and improving cooperation with startups and tech firms. 

The facility has been operational for several weeks and features real-world testing environments, including simulated combat scenarios with drones and robots.

“Anyone can send us an email,” an officer told The Arsenal, referring to the center’s effort to make it easy for interested industry actors to connect.

A “technology show,” focused on counter-drone systems, is scheduled for 12 May. The review will assess market-ready systems, paying extra attention to mobility and scalability. Applications to participate must be submitted by 9 April.

The Bundeswehr wants to identify systems suitable for testing as early as the third quarter of 2026, with potential active-duty deployment beginning in 2027. The office emphasized the need for counter-drone capabilities that can keep pace with mobile land forces.

The German Navy is also planning an innovation center in Kiel.

A controversy has erupted over remarks by Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger on Ukraine’s military innovation, triggering sharp reactions in Kyiv and beyond and exposing rifts over how modern warfare is understood in Europe.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Papperger compared Ukrainian drone development to “housewives” assembling “Lego,” suggesting they are built from readily available components rather than advanced industrial innovation.

Mattia Nelles of the German-Ukrainian Bureau in Berlin said European defense companies underestimate Ukraine’s battlefield expertise. While the agitation will subside, Papperger “has suffered damage, and Ukraine feels vindicated: Germans and Europeans are relatively clueless when it comes to modern warfare.” 

Such statements are met “with a mixture of frustration and defiance,” Nataliya Pryhornytska, co-founder of the Alliance of Ukrainian Organizations, told The Arsenal. Since a significant part of Ukraine’s military effectiveness relies on "unconventional" solutions—drones that can be produced quickly, cheaply, and in large quantities—“it therefore appears as arrogance from an established arms industry that underestimates the reality of a war in which adaptability and innovation, rather than prestige, are decisive.” 

“Papperger is partly right,” Ukrainian MP Oleg Dunda told The Arsenal. Ukraine’s battlefield achievements rely heavily on adapting existing technologies, he said, including systems like Starlink, and warned of a potential technological ceiling. 

He argued that future breakthroughs—such as integrating unmanned systems into advanced air and naval platforms—will require deeper cooperation with Western industry. “Therefore, collaboration with the Pappergers is essential here.”

Rheinmetall’s Brussels-based senior vice president Charles Dijon de Montejon suggested in a LinkedIn post that Papperger’s remarks had been “taken out of context, amplified,” and “moralized.”

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