Success In Developing Drones, Turkey Is Working On Heavyweight Unmanned Armored Vehicles

JAKARTA - Successfully developing and exporting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Turkey's defense industry is rolling up its sleeves and focusing on unmanned ground platforms in a bid to achieve the same success.

The industry, which exports UAVs to more than 20 countries, carried out versatile studies to develop unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in different classes.

Accordingly, the FNSS, one of the leading manufacturers of armored ground vehicles, signed a statement of interest with the Defense Industry Presidency (SSB) for the mass production of heavyweight unmanned ground vehicles.

General Manager of FNSS Nail Kurt told Anadolu Agency (AA), the company has various plans that are concentrated on developing the UGV, but the main focus is on the projects being carried out with SSB.

Explaining that the tasks and subsystems of the five vehicles are defined within the scope of the contract, Kurt stated once the proposals are finalized, they will be submitted to the SSB.

Kurt also noted that the unmanned ground vehicle they had previously developed did not have autonomous features, because "given the time, it was impossible to equip autonomous features at that time."

A certain level of autonomous features and weapons integration is required at the request of the SSB and Army Command, he explained.

Now that studies involving different configurations have been carried out, the newly signed contract will be the conceptual proof of this study, he said.

Kurt said the necessary changes will be implemented once the vehicle is put into use in the field, as user interaction and feedback is critical in this process.

He stressed, FNSS does not follow the mentality that "we're done making it, now use it" because the company is very open to develop its products according to user requests.

Turkey is at the beginning of the road when it comes to UGVs, said Kurt, noting: “Turkey and the world are still at the beginning when it comes to UGVs and their autonomous features.”

Forecasting delivery in 2023, Kurt said negotiations were ongoing and some simpler models, one or two vehicles, could be delivered first while more complex vehicles could be delivered later.