On June 28, 2024, Andrii Denysenko, CEO of the Design and Production Bureau “UkrPrototyp”, stood next to the Odyssey, an 800 kilogram (1,750 pound) aircraft in a corn field in northern Ukraine ground drone prototype.
Anton Stuka/AP
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NORTH UKRAINE — Amid manpower shortages, immense hardship and uneven international aid, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic advantage against Russia in abandoned warehouses or factory basements.
An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of clandestine workshops is harnessing innovation to create an army of robots that Ukraine hopes will be able to kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.
Defense startups across Ukraine—about 250 by industry estimates—are building killing machines in secret locations that often look like rural auto repair shops.
Employees at a startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can assemble an autonomous ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days in a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: $35,000, about 10 percent of the cost of the imported model.
Denisenko asked The Associated Press not to publish details of the site to protect the infrastructure and people who work there.
The site is divided into small rooms for welding and body work. These included building a fiberglass cargo bed, painting the vehicle gunmetal green and installing basic electronics, a battery-powered engine, off-the-shelf cameras and heat sensors.
The military is evaluating dozens of new drones, ground drones and maritime drones produced by the unpretentious startup, whose production methods are far removed from those of large Western defense companies.
On June 27, 2024, Serhii, the chief engineer of the Design and Production Bureau “UkrPrototyp”, was studying a car-sized 800 kilogram (1,750 pounds) prototype drone model in northern Ukraine.
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The Ukrainian army’s fourth unit – the Unmanned Systems Force – joined the army, navy and air force in May.
Engineers take inspiration from articles in defense magazines or online videos to produce cut-price platforms. Weapon or intelligence components can be added later.
“We are fighting a big power and they don’t have any resource constraints. We know we can’t waste too many lives,” said Denisenko, head of defense startup UkrPrototyp. “War is mathematics.”
Last month, one of its drones, the car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and kicked up dust as it rumbled through cornfields in the country’s north.
The 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype looks like a small tank without a turret, has wheels mounted on tracks, can travel 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on a single charge and has a battery the size of a small beer cooler. .
The prototype served as a rescue and resupply platform but could be modified to carry a remote-controlled heavy machine gun or sling mine clearing charges.
Following the creation of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Force, a government fundraising page said: “The robot squads… will serve as logistical equipment, trailers, minelayers and deminers, as well as self-destructing robots.” “The first robots have already proven themselves on the battlefield. effectiveness.”
Mykhailo Fedorov, deputy prime minister in charge of digital transformation, encouraged citizens to take free online courses and assemble drones at home. He wants Ukrainians to build a million flying machines a year.
“There will be more coming soon,” the fundraising page says. “There’s plenty more to come.”
Danisenko’s company is working on projects including mobile exoskeletons that can enhance soldiers’ strength and delivery vehicles that transport soldiers’ gear and even help them climb hills. “We will do everything we can to develop unmanned technology faster. (Russian) murderers use their soldiers as cannon fodder, and we lose our best talents,” Fedorov wrote in an online post.
Ukraine has semi-autonomous attack drones and artificial intelligence counter-drone weapons. The combination of low-cost weapons and artificial intelligence tools worries many experts, who say low-cost drones will allow them to proliferate.
Technology leaders at the United Nations and the Vatican worry that using drones and artificial intelligence in weapons could lower barriers to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts.
Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups have called for a ban on weapons that preclude human decision-making, concerns echoed by the United Nations General Assembly, Musk and the founder of Google’s London-based startup DeepMind.
“Cheaper drones will facilitate 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.”
