Dec 1 2016
Milrem, the Estonian defence solutions provider and ST Kinetics, one of Asia’s leading land systems companies, came one step closer to helping support or replace soldiers on the battlefield with robots in November when they successfully tested the first weaponized fully modular unmanned ground vehicle, the THeMIS ADDER.
The THeMIS ADDER in action with Estonian Defence Forces soldiers. (Credit: Businesswire)
With the aim to minimize human casualties and support existing ground troops, the two companies have been jointly developing a weaponized unmanned vehicle for some time now. During November however, with the cooperation and supervision of the Estonian Defence Forces first live fire test of the vehicle were conducted.
“The tests were intended to test the stability of our platform and see how the remote weapon station and vehicle communicate and work with each other,” explained Kuldar Väärsi, CEO of Milrem. “To our satisfaction everything worked perfectly, you can see as much from the video,” he added.
The THeMIS ADDER was equipped with a CIS 50MG. However the system can be outfitted with smaller and larger caliber weapons as well.
"Estonians have proved many times before that we can successfully be on the forefront of innovation and the Milrem unmanned ground vehicle is a great example of that innovation when it comes to new technologies in the military field,” said Lieutenant General Riho Terras, Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces. “THeMIS ADDER has great potential to put Estonia on the map of countries that provide new technologies and solutions to the modern battlefield,” Terras added.
The THeMIS ADDER features the first fully modular hybrid unmanned ground vehicle in the world the THeMIS and the remote weapon station ADDER from ST Kinetics.
The TheMIS has a payload of 750-1000 kg, speed of 24km/h and up to 10h operation time. In addition to being a machine gun on tracks the vehicle can be used for a wide variety of applications, including remote reconnaissance platform, C-IED (Counter Improvised Explosive Device) platform, medevac vehicle and supply delivery device.
To see video of the THeMIS ADDER in action, please visit: https://youtu.be/DfqGuFYKSoE