Andrii Denysenko, CEO of the design and production bureau “UkrPrototyp,” stands next to Odyssey, an 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype land drone, in a cornfield in northern Ukraine, June 28, 2024. Faced with labor shortages and uneven international aid, Ukraine is counting heavily on domestic innovation to halt Russia’s gradual but rapid advance to the east.
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NORTHERN UKRAINE — Faced with labor shortages, insurmountable odds and uneven international aid, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic advantage against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or factory basement.
An ecosystem of labs spread across hundreds of secret workshops is harnessing innovation to create an army of robots that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.
Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 by industry estimates — are creating killing machines in secret locations that often resemble rural auto repair shops.
Employees of a startup led by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko are able to build an unmanned ground vehicle called Odyssey in four days in a hangar used by the company. Its main feature is its price: $35,000, about 10% of the price of an imported model.
Denysenko asked The Associated Press not to publish details about the location to protect the infrastructure and the people who work there.
The site is divided into small rooms for welding and bodywork. This includes making fibreglass bins, spray painting the vehicles green and installing basic electronics, battery-powered motors, cameras and commercially available thermal sensors.
The military is evaluating dozens of new unmanned aerial, land and maritime vehicles produced by the low-cost startup sector, whose production methods are far removed from those of Western defense giants.
Serhii, chief engineer of the design and production bureau “UkrPrototyp”, works on a prototype drone model the size of an 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) car in northern Ukraine on June 27, 2024.
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A fourth branch of the Ukrainian military — the Unmanned Systems Forces — joined the army, navy and air force in May.
Engineers draw inspiration from defense magazine articles or online videos to produce low-cost platforms. Weapons or smart components can be added later.
“We are fighting a huge country, whose resources are unlimited. We understand that we cannot waste many human lives,” said Denysenko, who runs the defense startup UkrPrototyp. “War is mathematics.”
One of its drones, the car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and kicked up dust as it moved through a cornfield in the north of the country last month.
The 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype, which resembles a small, turretless tank with its tracked wheels, can travel up to 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on a single charge from a battery the size of a small beer cooler.
The prototype serves as a rescue and supply platform, but can be modified to carry a remote-controlled heavy machine gun or to launch mine-clearing charges.
“Robot squadrons… will become logistics vehicles, tow trucks, mine layers and deminers, as well as self-destructing robots,” a government fundraising page said after the Ukrainian unmanned systems forces launched. “The first robots are already proving their effectiveness on the battlefield.”
Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister for Digital Transformation, is encouraging citizens to take free online courses and assemble aerial drones at home. He wants Ukrainians to produce one million flying devices per year.
“There will be more soon,” the fundraising page said. “A lot more.”
Denysenko’s company is working on projects such as a powered exoskeleton that would enhance the strength of soldiers and carrier vehicles to carry their equipment and even help them climb a slope. “We will do everything to make unmanned technologies develop even faster. The (Russian) murderers use their soldiers as cannon fodder, while we lose our best elements,” Fedorov wrote in an online message.
Ukraine has semi-autonomous attack drones and AI-powered counter-drone weapons, and the combination of low-cost weapons and AI tools worries many experts who say low-cost drones will enable their proliferation.
Technology leaders at the United Nations and the Vatican fear that the use of drones and AI in weapons could lower the barrier to death and significantly escalate conflicts.
Human Rights Watch and other international human rights groups are calling for a ban on weapons that exclude human decision-making, a concern echoed by the United Nations General Assembly, Elon Musk and the founders of Google-owned, London-based startup DeepMind.
“Cheaper drones will drive their proliferation,” said Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “Their autonomy will only increase.”
News Source : www.npr.org
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