The Estonian company Milrem Robotics in cooperation with the German Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) will deliver 14 THeMIS drones to Ukraine. This is reported by Militarnyi with reference to company website. Financing is provided by the German Ministry of Defense.
It is about 7 autonomous vehicles for evacuating the wounded, which will be delivered to Ukraine by the end of this year. And about 7 drones that will be used for road cleaning and have special equipment from the French manufacturer CNIM Systèmes Industriels. They will arrive in Ukraine in the second quarter of 2023.
At the end of August 2022 the same medical evacuation drone THeMIS was brought to Ukraine by Medical Volunteer Battalion of Hospitaliers and the Petro Poroshenko Foundation. This project was named Zhuravel (Crane) in honor of the fallen defender of Ukraine.
“Casualty evacuation and route clearance are two labor-intensive activities that require the engagement of several people who remain in constant threat of enemy fire. Automating these tasks by these unmanned vehicles alleviates that danger and allows more soldiers to stay in a safe area or be tasked with more important activities,” explained Jüri Pajuste, Defense R&D Director at Milrem Robotics.
That's 100% true, Mr. Pajuste, but besides THeMIS Cargo and THeMIS Cargo CASEVAC, Milrem Robotics has other interesting developments on this same chassis. For example, with heavy machine guns, automatic cannons, launch containers for kamikaze drones, and so on. The idea of integrating the THeMIS chassis with Brimstone missiles was also developed.
In addition, Milrem Robotics has a light autonomous Type-X Robotic Combat Vehicle tank in its arsenal on the Type-X platform with an integrated Protector RT40 turret from Kongsberg. We are sure that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will gladly test such new equipment in real conditions!
Anyway, thank you Estonia, thank you Germany.
Technical specifications of THeMIS Cargo
Maximum speed - 20 km/h
Length × width × height – 240 × 200 × 115 cm
Weight - 1630 kg
Rated payload weight - 750 kg
Maximum payload weight - 1200 kg
Maximum grade - 60%
Maximum side slope - 30%
Ground clearance – 40-60 cm
Pull force – 15 kN
Power options - diesel engine & electric generator
Run time - up to 15 hours (hybrid version), up to 1.5 hours (electric version)
Line of sight control range - up to 1.5 km
Sensors – LiDARs, infra-red, thermal and HDR cameras
Encryption – AES256