8.15.24
A NATO drone maker on Russia's doorstep is testing its tech under Russian fire — and its CEO is out on the battlefield collecting feedback and figuring out what works. Lithuanian company Granta Autonomy was founded in 2015 and was among the first to send drones to Ukraine. The company began sending its drones in March 2022, just a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. At the start, the company simply collected feedback remotely. But the company's CEO, Gediminas Guoba, felt that this was "not enough." He needed to understand exactly how his products worked on a real battlefield and what needed to be improved. That insight was "kind of a breakthrough for us," informing new features, components, and upgrades. Work to advance warfighting technology like drone tech is of particular importance for this company because Lithuania would be on the front lines of any potential war between Russia and NATO, and there are concerns within the decades-old alliance that Russian aggression could one day stretch beyond Ukraine.
Granta Autonomy makes drones and components that can operate with autonomy when radio and GPS signals are denied and are able to support intelligence-gathering, surveillance, and target acquisition. With NATO armed forces, "your systems get used maybe once a month, as for example, during exercises and so on," the CEO explained. But in Ukraine, he continued, "when you deliver your system, it is used every day and many times during the day." That's great for learning how the product works because that's how it is designed to be used. "It's needed every day, and they use it every day." The drone manufacturer has delivered 1,000 of its GA-10FPV-AI quadcopter drones, which can carry a payload of more than six pounds and be used for attack and surveillance. Ukraine also uses Granta's Hornet XR drone, a fixed-wing reconnaissance drone that can covertly travel up to 99 miles, for combat operations. The company only considers something a product if it's been battlefield-tested in Ukraine. "Until then, it's just like an idea; it's a prototype," Guoba said. Guoba said that he actually visits the battlefield himself "just to understand how it really works." Ukraine is also inviting foreign arms manufacturers to send weapons prototypes so its troops can test them against Russia in battle, with Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister for digital transformation, calling it "an opportunity to gain experience that cannot be simulated in laboratories."
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