EU consortium commences integration of swarming technology into THeMIS UGVs

THeMIS UGVs pictured alongside French Army soldiers of the Vulcan robotics testing unit at a demonstration of iMUGS autonomy capabilities, Camp Satory, in October 2022. (iMUGS)

Companies working on the Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System (iMUGS) – the European Union's (EU's) project for a common unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) – have commenced the integration of swarming technology into Milrem's THeMIS medium UGV, Janes has learnt.

Experts from three organisations within the iMUGS consortium – dotOcean, the Royal Military Academy of Belgium, and Insta – are understood to have begun work on the integration of the swarming technologies at Nexter facilities at Camp Satory, France, on 27 October.

The iMUGS project demonstrated swarming technologies integrated into makeshift UGVs at a dynamic demonstration in Belgium in June. These vehicles were crude four-wheeled platforms that were equipped with only Global Positioning System (GPS) and heading devices. The present effort will focus on transferring previously demonstrated swarming technologies into the THeMIS, a far more sophisticated platform of direct military utility.

Speaking to Janes , Chris Desomer, project manager at dotOcean, said, “We have already tested everything in our simulator, and we already have the proper preparation of the architecture. Now, the integration will test how good our simulation was. We just need to check that our assumptions are correct.”

Janes understands that work on the integration and testing of the swarming capabilities is expected to continue until approximately 16 November. The THeMIS vehicles will then be transported to Germany ahead of a final demonstration of swarming capabilities scheduled to be held in Berlin in December 2022.