Drone Company in NATO Says Testing in Ukraine Key, Sends CEO

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, told Business Insider 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.

It’s not a product until it’s been tested in 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. It has a contract to send nearly 4,000 more to Ukraine and more than 2,300 to Lithuania’s armed forces. 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.”

He said it’s one thing for him to hear about how his product is working, “but that’s completely different when you are there and you are feeling, when you’re absorbing that environment,” the continuous shelling, the Russian jamming, the drones chasing soldiers wherever they go.

He said that “it’s a completely different experience being or working here and just getting feedback from operators.”

About more than helping the Ukrainians

Guoba wants his products in this fight “not only to help Ukraine,” but also to help his own country.

Lithuania shares a border with Russia and is among the NATO countries most vocally warning that Russia may attack elsewhere in Europe. Former CIA director David Petraeus said in May that Lithuania was the country he thought was most at risk of a Russian invasion, an aggressive act that would draw the rest of the NATO alliance into a war.

Defense companies in those countries are among the most keen to give their products to Ukraine and learn from the war. Many countries across Europe, as well as the US, are watching Ukraine’s fight to see what would be needed in such a conflict, from weaponry to strategy.

Drone warfare is a key area they can study. Drones are being used more in this war than in any other conflict in history, and drone and counter-drone technology are rapidly evolving, with both sides constantly innovating new technology and tactics.

Guoba said his company has had to make constant adaptations, including to make its drones more survivable or give them greater reach in battle.

“You need to keep improving your technology, improving your product, making it more reliable to ensure that it keeps bringing value in the modern battlefield. Something that worked two years ago and was okay two years ago is not okay anymore,” he said.

Guoba added that “being there, learning new lessons, and improving our products, it’s the key thing.”

Working with Ukraine

Guoba’s view is one shared by other Western defense companies. Kuldar Väärsi, the CEO of Milrem Robotics, which develops military robotics and autonomous systems, told Business Insider that his company has a team that regularly visits Ukraine and meets with military units, working directly with operators.

The products are used in a “totally different environment than in peacetime training or exercise environment.”

Väärsi said that the feedback from and performance in Ukraine have led them to make big changes to their products: “What we have learned and changed and implemented in our systems is everything related to EW, communication, and cyber.”

Western defense companies, many military officials, and Ukraine itself all say they see value in working and testing tech in Ukraine, which has been striving to make it easier for foreign companies to test their systems on the battlefield, fueling innovation in warfare.

Many partner militaries want their nations’ companies to be in Ukraine. Luke Pollard, the UK’s armed forces minister, said in May: “If you are a drone company and you do not have your kit on the frontline in Ukraine, you might as well give up.”

Some of the big Western defense companies, like Germany’s Rheinmetall, are opening offices and production lines in Ukraine and working with Ukrainian defense firms. It allows them to get help to Ukraine faster, as well as learn what works best against Russia.

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.”