Unmanned Systems Technology 023 I Milrem Multiscope I Wireless charging I Logistics insight I InterGeo, CUAV London & USA show reports I VideoRay Defender I OS Engines GR400U-FI I Ultrabeam Hydrographic Ultra-2 I IMUs

30 for fighting inaccessible fires and finding missing people in harsh environments and remote forested areas. Others include a manipulator arm, harvesters and mowers, a fertiliser tank and spraying equipment, a pair of fork lift tines, a snow plough and a simple cargo basket. Milrem provides an adapter plate for payloads, but as yet there are no agreed standards for mounting equipment on UGVs, although the industry is working on it. “We are trying to motivate our partners to move towards one standardised platform,” Hankewitz explains. “Our experience with payload integration is mostly on weapon systems. “We currently have different mounts for every partner, but we recently discussed the possibility of creating a single standard mount and a smaller adapter that we can exchange for each payload.” Control and autonomy For now, both the Multiscope and THeMIS are teleoperated. If the driver always has the vehicle in sight, a handheld unit resembling a game console controller is used; if they have to rely on the view from onboard cameras, the control unit is a rugged tablet computer with joysticks attached, supplied by Estonian company December/January 2019 | Unmanned Systems Technology Milrem Robotics has taken an unusual route into the unmanned systems business. It is an offshoot of Estonia’s largest bus operation and maintenance organisation the Mootor Group, of which Kuldar Vaarsi, who was educated as a public administrator, was chairman. He led the group through the modernisation of its services, replacing old vehicles with new ones and luring business commuters out of their cars with comfort and good internet connectivity while still offering fares low enough to keep its traditional student market. Vaarsi learned that the Estonian Defence Forces wanted to outsource the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of its armoured vehicle fleet, most of which was built by Finnish company Patria. The Mootor Group won the MRO contract in 2013, servicing it through a new company it called Milrem – derived from ‘military repair, engineering and maintenance’. However, knowing that the contract was very small, Vaarsi looked for a new area with growth potential in which to invest. “We started with an analysis of what would happen in the military market in general and technology-wise, and came to the conclusion that the market for unmanned technologies and ground robotics would start to grow significantly in the following five to 10 years,” he says. Earlier this year, Milrem separated into Milrem LCM, which retains the armoured vehicle business, and Milrem Robotics. Based in Finland’s capital Tallinn, Milrem Robotics’ main skills are mechanical and electrical engineering, and software development, bolstered by its AI team in Tartu, Estonia’s second city. “We define ourselves as a technology development company focused on robotic and autonomous systems using advanced AI capabilities,” Vaarsi says, adding that the company has concentrated on defence first because there is an established military interest in UGVs. “But as the autonomous technology develops further and gets cheaper, we see a much bigger market in commercial applications.” Milrem’s origins The tower supporting Leica Geosystems’ survey head bolts to the load platform, illustrating Milrem’s efforts to simplify mechanical integration (Courtesy of Milrem)