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A startup with founders who antecedently served in the German armed forces has produce a product kindred to an Amazon Firestick for legacy denial equipment , complete with a software stack . ARX Roboticsclaims its system can turn older equipment into AI - drive devices , such as autonomous - driving truck .
Back in June this twelvemonth ARX raised a € 9 million source funding around with theNATO Innovation Fundas top investor , supported byProject A VenturesandDiscovery Ventures .
ARX first come out with Unmanned Ground Vehicles ( UGV ) and deliver the goods a very large German military government contract ( in this case for deployment in Ukraine ) .
It ’s now launchedARX Mithra OS , an AI - based operating arrangement that turns military vehicle into intelligent , interconnected autonomous units . The OS comes with computer hardware cameras and sensors that can be mounted onto military trucks or alike vehicle . The ARX Autonomy Kit also comes with over - the - air update .
Marc Wietfeld , founder and chief operating officer of ARX Robotics — also a former member of the German Army — told TechCrunch that while the “ field of the future is digital ” European and other Western US Army continue to procure analog system which have no connection to mod battlefield system of rules .
“ We were build software and computer hardware for unmanned systems mainly on the ground . The thing is , we find the trouble when being in the front short letter in Ukraine — but especially with the NATO armed forces — that the new plus of war such as drone , sensor , software , AI , etc . can not complect or collaborate with our live fleets . ”
He pointed out that the German Armed Forces procured 3,500 Mercedes trucks but that “ nothing is software package up to . Nothing is interconnected . There ’s not even a radio on it . ”
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“ So we fabricate a form of Amazon Firestick for existing legacy fleets of the NATO armed force . So we are build robots , but we are also robotizing the existing fleet , ” he say .
In the context of the warfare with Ukraine , it ’s become absolved that interconnect and autonomous systems in advanced warfare are now absolutely all-important . However , NATO has outdated arsenals and under - resourced European forces .
Wietfeld take the startup has no recognise competition in the space : “ Instead of having unaffordable and clock time costly replacements , we require to kick upstairs the survive things . And it does n’t depend if it ’s the Toyotas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces , or the Leopard tank , or the Challenger tank of the U.K. armed forces . They require to utter one language and with clear interfaces . ”
The opportunity here is to turn vehicles into “ wingman , ” with fleet intelligence , situational knowingness , and other expression of innovative war .
“ The increased willingness for military disbursal after the Russian invasion is get into off , body politic are setting dissimilar precedency or simply are tend out of budget . Therefore , it will be cardinal to not only place in new technologies but to update existing material and adapt it to modern war , ” said Lt . Gen. Frank Leidenberger , CEO of BWI , the IT servicing supplier of Bundeswehr , the German U. S. Army , in a financial statement .
