A Ukrainian arms maker that built an automated machine gun turret to engage Russian aircraft is now aiming to deploy the weapon against small drones packed with explosives.
Ukrainian naval drones equipped with the turret, called the Predator, helped Kyiv take down two Russian helicopters and a fighter jet over the Black Sea in the past year, the CEO of UGV Robotics told Business Insider in an interview.
The Predator gun system has since been tested against the kind of first-person-view (FPV) drones menacing the battlefield and will soon be deployed to the front lines, where small drones continue to be a headache for vehicle crews and dismounted infantry alike.
“Now we focus on the FPV because it’s one of the biggest problems on the front line,” said the CEO, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to security considerations.
Naval combat
Early in the war, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as the GUR, deployed naval drones in the Black Sea to help Kyiv counter the threatening presence of Russian warships.
After a string of successful Ukrainian naval drone attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Moscow responded by increasing air patrols with helicopters and fighter jets.
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The GUR’s “Magura” naval drones are loaded up with explosives and ram into their targets and detonate, but these vessels long lacked sufficient protection from above. The agency, looking for a solution that could track patrol aircraft and help shoot them down, approached UGV Robotics about the Predator system, the company’s CEO said.
Courtesy of UGV Robotics.
The Predator-equipped Magura naval drone made its combat debut in December 2024. That month, the turret was used in a target acquisition role, helping the GUR take down two Russian helicopters with surface-to-air missiles fired from different naval drones in the area.
It marked the first known instance of a naval drone firing on and striking an aircraft.
The Predator was used regularly in the Black Sea in the months that followed, and in May, it assisted in downing a Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter aircraft.
Getting the Predator turret to work successfully on the water was a highly complex process for the UGV engineers, the CEO said. Not only did it have to be stable, but it also had to fit on the naval drone and operate effectively in harsh weather conditions.
A new mission
Though it was developed for naval drones, the Predator gun system has been tested against small FPV drones. The turret fires 7.62-caliber bullets and features gyro stabilization, with optical sensors and artificial intelligence for target detection.
The turret can be set up on tracked vehicles or even in the back of a pickup truck, allowing the weapon to hit targets on the go, just as it could at sea.
The Predator has all the technology to be fully autonomous, but UGV Robotics prefers that humans are still involved in the process to avoid friendly fire incidents, the CEO said. The turret indicates to the operator when a drone is present, allowing them to decide whether to lock on the target and start firing.
Courtesy of UGV Robotics
Newer Predator models have a laser range finder for better accuracy and more precise strikes, the CEO said.
Tests of the turret have put it up against FPV drones controlled by both fiber-optic cables and radio frequency signals. Its maker says it can engage targets as small as seven inches at 100 meters.
The automated weapon will soon be deployed to the front lines in Ukraine, the CEO said, adding that, because the Predator can operate at sea, it should also be successful on land.
UGV Robotics aims to eventually develop a larger gun turret — the Apex Predator — that fires .50-caliber bullets and can be used against bigger threats.
UGV Robotics has already built more than 30 Predators, and it intends to be producing around 100 units a month within half a year. Every gun turret is made in Ukraine and costs less than $100,000 for Kyiv’s military; the unit price will be slightly higher for future exports once the government opens up that process.
The company showed the Predator to NATO at an “Innovation Challenge” hosted by the military alliance, which brought together Ukrainian and Western defense companies earlier in the year to find solutions to the FPV drone threat.
The CEO said that UGV Robotics has, more recently, demonstrated the Predator remotely during a NATO-held testing event in France. The company hopes to sell the turret to NATO and is already seeing interest from several countries.
