Estonian defense forces have carried out their first live-fire test of a weaponized unmanned ground vehicle.

The THeMIS ADDER—a product of Estonian defense solutions provider Milrem and specialty vehicle manufacturer ST Kinetics, of Singapore—has a payload of 750 kg-1,000 kg, a top speed of 24 km/h and continuous operation time of up to 10 hours. In addition to being a machine gun on tracks, the vehicle can be used for a wide variety of applications, including remote reconnaissance, medevac of casualties, supply delivery and as a counter improvised explosive device platform.

The vehicle has a payload of 750 kg-1,000 kg, a top speed of 24 km/h and continuous operation time of up to 10 hours. Image credit: Milrem. For the live-fire test, the vehicle was equipped with a CIS 50MG—a belt-fed heavy machine gun developed and manufactured by ST Kinetics. However, the system can be outfitted with smaller- and larger-caliber weapons as well.

“The tests were intended to test the stability of our platform and see how the remote weapon station and vehicle communicate and work with each other,” says Kuldar Väärsi, CEO of Milrem. “To our satisfaction, everything worked perfectly—you can see as much from the video."

The two companies have been jointly developing the weaponized unmanned vehicle for several years now with the aim, they say, of minimizing human casualties. As such, the THeMIS ADDER is envisioned as helping support, or even replacing, soldiers on the battlefield.