SENTINEL-M
Leads soldiers through danger. Brings the wounded home alive.
The New Reality of Ground Warfare
The war in Ukraine has revealed a profound shift in modern land combat — a shift that NATO has not yet fully absorbed. Foot movement, once viewed as relatively low-risk outside of direct contact, has become one of the most lethal phases of any operation. Every approach march, rotation, and resupply now exposes soldiers to persistent aerial surveillance, electronic warfare, and precision strike threats.
The Grey Zone: Where Soldiers Are Most Vulnerable
Across Ukraine, troops must move through 10–20 kilometres of contested grey zone terrain under constant observation from FPV drones and loitering munitions. Electronic warfare degrades navigation. Long-range fires reach deep behind the front. Vehicles cannot enter these areas without being immediately targeted, and medics cannot reach casualties without accepting extreme personal risk.
Fatigue accumulates rapidly as soldiers carry heavy loads, becoming slower, louder, and more exposed. Casualties are no longer limited to the zero line; they occur throughout the entire movement cycle — every road, every treeline, every trench approach.
A Global Paradigm Shift in Warfare
What is happening in Ukraine is not an anomaly — it is a preview of future conflict. FPV drones dominate open terrain. Electronic warfare disrupts communications and GPS. Even small commercial UAVs now deliver lethal precision effects. Forest belts, trench systems, shattered urban zones, and rubble restrict mobility. Light infantry must manoeuvre and fight beneath a permanent aerial threat.
This is the battlespace NATO must prepare for, and it is fundamentally different from the environments for which traditional UGVs were designed.
Where NATO’s Current Ground Robots Fall Short
Most NATO UGVs depend on GPS navigation, clean corridor movement, stable data links, or open terrain maneuverability. None of these conditions exist in drone-saturated, EW-intense, rubble-choked battlefields. Systems built around these assumptions cannot survive or function effectively in the new conflict paradigm.
NATO requires a ground system that is not merely teleoperated, not static, and not dependent on legacy assumptions. It must be autonomous, resilient, and purpose-built for this new kind of war.
The Capability NATO Now Urgently Needs
NATO forces require a multi-role autonomous platform capable of moving ahead of dismounted troops, proving routes under threat, reducing soldier load during long movements, and evacuating wounded personnel even when GPS, communications, or visibility are compromised. It must navigate trenches, forest belts, collapsed structures, and urban rubble while surviving in an environment dominated by drones and electronic interference.
This is not an incremental requirement. It is a doctrinal necessity for any force operating in the next decade.
The SENTINEL-M Solution
SENTINEL-M was built precisely for this gap. It is engineered around the operational reality exposed in Ukraine, where every movement is contested, every route is dangerous, and every casualty is at risk of becoming unreachable. Yet its design philosophy looks beyond the current war, aligning with NATO’s future battlespaces where drones, EW, and precision fires will define tempo, survivability, and freedom of movement.
SENTINEL-M transforms how infantry move, survive, and extract casualties in the era of autonomous threats. It is not a traditional UGV — it is a new class of battlefield system built for the world that is emerging, not the world that has passed.