Thales Australia, subsidiary of French defense giant Thales Group, in partnership with Chaos 1 company, specializing in assessment, prototyping and experiments with unmanned systems, and mount and turret manufacturer W&E Platt in very tight timelines developed ground robotic system called Guardian Angel.
As Australian Defence publication reports, they managed to develop, build and even successfully test this UGV prototype (involving live-fire testing) in only six weeks. This ground robotic system is modular and can be adapted for various task use depending on payload.
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Additionally, Guardian Angel is primarily considered as wingman for various armored vehicles like Bushmaster. Although, for example, in Ukraine UGVs are used primarily as independent units, and predominantly for logistics and wounded evacuation tasks, and only then for fire support and so on.
Defense Express notes that in Australia they clearly understood Ukraine's experience, when modern weapons samples like UGVs must be created and modernized in quite tight timelines — given that needs for such weapons samples sometimes change very quickly, and companies must be able to instantly react to them so military ultimately receives quality products suitable for use on modern battlefield.
But also worth adding that specifically testing in real combat conditions enables making conclusions regarding quality improvements needed for various weapons samples.
This is confirmed by Ukraine's experience with various weapons and equipment samples, as well as Western companies that tested their weapons in Ukraine. One can, for example, recall example with GLSDB rocket-bombs from such giants as Boeing and Saab, which during tests in Defense Forces proved vulnerable to russian electronic warfare assets.
And, for example, in some European countries they emphasize that one of weighty factors during decision-making regarding procurement of various weapons is its operation in Ukrainian military, as for many countries this is currently only possible way to test their weapons on real battlefield. And for Australian UGV such variant is also not excluded, although so far may appear unlikely.
Previously Defense Express reported Japan conducts FAT-R project, for which Armed Forces experience with UGV landing on Kinburn Spit may be needed.
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