1y ago

From basement to battlefield: Ukrainian startups create low-cost robots to fight Russia

Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement.

An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.

Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 according to industry estimates — are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops.

Employees at a startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unmanned ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: $35,000, or roughly 10% of the cost of an imported model.

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"Technology leaders to the United Nations and the Vatican worry that the use of drones and AI in weapons could reduce the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts."
Interesting read, didn't know the Vatican had "technology leaders".
- They’ve a (small) army, and a very large intelligence network. Don’t forget the Vatican is basically a nation in its own right.
  They’re probably pushing as much influence/manipulation online into elections as any one else is, except maybe Russia, China, Iran and NK
  
  They’ve a (small) army,
  With the most adorable uniforms.
  (They are allowed sub machine guns along with those pikes when doing Pope guard duty.)
  
  They’ve a (small) army
  On hire.
There is nothing quite like a war to drive technological innovation...
- See a need, fill a need.
Come to Ukraine, we have:
Dire Wheelchair
- For the elderly or disabled dire wolf who still wishes to see combat.
  
  Why didn't the Adeptus Mechanicus design dreadnoughts around remote workers? Are they stupid?
Does anyone remember BattleBots?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleBots
- The British version was much better, IMO.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Wars_(TV_series)
  Also, I attended a live robot battle event at DragonCon around the same time. It was lots of fun.
  
  Despite it obviously being hugely popular (those crowds! Those smelly, smelly crowds!), I think this is the first time I've ever seen or heard somebody mention DragonCon "in the wild".
This is the best summary I could come up with:
An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.
Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 according to industry estimates — are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops.
That includes making fiberglass cargo beds, spray-painting the vehicles gun-green and fitting basic electronics, battery-powered engines, off-the-shelf cameras and thermal sensors.
The military is assessing dozens of new unmanned air, ground and marine vehicles produced by the no-frills startup sector, whose production methods are far removed from giant Western defense companies’.
Mykhailo Fedorov, the deputy prime minister for digital transformation, is encouraging citizens to take free online courses and assemble aerial drones at home.
Technology leaders to the United Nations and the Vatican worry that the use of drones and AI in weapons could reduce the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts.
The original article contains 684 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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