Milrem Robotics

Milrem Robotics was founded in Tallinn in 2013 and spent its first years building a tracked unmanned ground vehicle at a time when very few European companies were seriously trying. That vehicle, THeMIS, turned out to be the right size and the right price, and it is now the reference point for the category. The company has grown into Europe's most widely fielded ground robotics supplier, with research subsidiaries in Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United States and manufacturing capacity in Tallinn quoted at more than five hundred THeMIS units a year.

THeMIS is a modular tracked platform of roughly 1,600 kilograms that can carry around 1,200 kilograms of payload. Configurations cover logistics resupply, casualty evacuation, reconnaissance, explosive ordnance disposal and direct combat, with weapon fits ranging from light and heavy machine guns through 40mm grenade launchers and 30mm autocannon to anti-tank missile launchers. Recent combat configurations have paired it with the dual-Buria remote weapon station and with the EOS R400 Slinger counter-drone system. Users include Denmark, Estonia, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine and Japan, and the vehicle has been used operationally in Ukraine. A civilian version called Multiscope carries payloads such as firefighting equipment.

Type-X is the heavier line, a tracked robotic combat vehicle in the twelve-tonne class intended to work alongside crewed armour, adaptable for weapon stations, mine clearance and other combat support roles. HAVOC is the newest platform, an eight-by-eight hybrid-electric robotic combat vehicle of around fifteen tonnes with a road speed near 110 kilometres per hour and a range of about 600 kilometres, unveiled with Moog's RIwP turret fitted.

Software is the part of the business that outlasts any one chassis. MIFIK, the Milrem Intelligent Functions Integration Kit, is the autonomy package that provides waypoint navigation, follow-me behaviour, obstacle detection and related functions, and it is sold as something that can be fitted to other manufacturers' vehicles rather than only to Milrem's own. ARCOS, the Autonomous and Robotic Control Suite, is a modular command and control system for running mixed groups of unmanned systems and payloads from one interface.

Milrem has led two rounds of the European Defence Fund's ground robotics work. The original iMUGS project brought together a consortium of European companies to develop a standardised unmanned ground system architecture, and iMUGS2, valued at 55 million euros, is running now. The company has also pushed a Robotised Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative aimed at NATO's border states, which is a fairly direct read of where its market is.

Ownership changed in February 2023 when the UAE's EDGE Group acquired a majority stake, in what was described as the largest foreign investment in the Estonian defence industry. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann had taken a 24.9 percent minority holding in 2021, and founder and chief executive Kuldar Vaarsi, Estonian private investors and employees hold the rest. The company stayed headquartered in Tallinn after the deal and continues to operate from offices in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands.