Interview: Fortem Technologies And Adaptation In Ukraine
The start of another winter in Ukraine also marks the start of a new Russian campaign to destroy Ukrainian electricity, heat, water and other utility services using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and long range drones like the now infamous Shahed-136.
Fortem Technologies’ DroneHunter system earned the moniker of “Shahed Hunter” during the first Russian anti-utilities campaign in the winter of 2022 for the system’s use of nets to bring down Shaheds targeting critical Ukrainian infrastructure, as well as to disable Russian reconnaissance drones over the frontlines. The DroneHunter is now one of several “Shahed Hunter” drone systems used by Ukraine forces to help intercept incoming Shaheds, but work continues to refine the original.
Overt Defense had the opportunity to catch up with Fortem Technologies CEO Jon Gruen and Chief Marketing Officer Warren Brown on how Fortem is continuing to develop its system based on operational experience, and how those experiences have shaped the company’s approach to improving and innovating.
What’s the latest for the DroneHunter in Ukraine?
Gruen: We are now in a partnership with the Ukrainian defense ministry to spiral in new capabilities to maintain the DroneHunter’s effectiveness on the battlefield. We’ve been in Ukraine for over two and a half years now, we understand the dynamics on the electronic warfare battlefield there, and we keep improving the system in areas like mitigating GPS denial, communications jamming, and making them more effective overall.
So by the end of 2024, we will have almost 400 DroneHunter systems in Ukraine.
That’s a pretty aggressive production schedule. What are you guys doing to scale production, both for Ukraine and any potential clients?
Gruen: We’re going through a facilities review right now. We’re probably going to open a whole new production line in early 2025 because we have such growing demand. And we think most likely going to be based in Utah near our headquarters, but we’re analyzing all options right now.
We have seen an increase in the use of Ukrainian first person view drones to intercept Russian surveillance drones like Orlans and Zalas, what’s your take on this development?
Gruen: FPVs in general are starting to really get a lot more attention. We’ve done two things – we’ve captured FPVs with our DroneHunter. Then we looked at the successes of the FPVs in doing the counter UAS mission, and we’re looking to apply our autonomy technologies to make it even better, simpler, more reliable. One of our development programs seeks to add autonomy to that operational concept.
There’s clearly some way through which these FPVs are guided to these Russian surveillance drones. Would you happen to know if any of Fortem’s radars or other aerial awareness technology is being used there?
Gruen: Yes, our radar systems are absolutely being used to detect threats and allow for mitigation through FPVs and other ways by providing aerospace awareness.
We’ve had the commander of the Ukrainian Magyar drone specialist unit say that they expect to be able to develop mostly autonomous FPV type drones that can basically automatically identify and terminally guide itself to a target in six months. There is some conceptual similarity with what Fortem uses for the DroneHunter. What’s your take on this sort of autonomy and perhaps more importantly, what is Fortem’s approach to building user trust in the drone hunter system?
Gruen: So our approach is that we use our organically developed sensors, which primarily is radar, which we believe is the best sensor solution for all conditions on the battlefield. So you can contrast that with electro-optical, infrared, to have a sensor that is not impacted by weather, day, night, or other conditions out there. And the radar ends up being the preferred seeker capability to retain high probabilities of kill in your systems.
So that being said, if you’re developing 100,000 drones a month at low cost and they only have to be effective against certain threats, obviously that’s a different class. The capabilities, the technologies involved are lower cost but still provide a certain functionality on the battlefield. So we’re going after where you have a little bit higher end threat, and really need a little bit higher assured probability of kill. But not getting into the point of having to deploy a large missile system or counter battery system, which gets into the millions of dollars very quickly all said and done.
So we’re kind of finding that sweet spot between the two with our technologies. And as far as building trust, it’s just really just through operational wins. So it’s, you know, learning from failures but also through getting increased kills. And that’s the path for two and a half years in Ukraine – understanding, again, what the realities on the battlefield are, then deploying and testing capabilities that we think will mitigate it.
And the ones that work, we deploy at scale. And what you just got to do is just keep improving, getting it in the hands of customers, making it work and just improving the things that matter to them, right? Understanding their pain points, the autonomy aspects, reducing manpower that’s required, ease of setup, all of those aspects that go into this. So, yeah, just really being constantly on the ground with our customers and earning their trust every day through operational successes.
Brown: When you talk about trust, about autonomy, the human is in final command, so there’s always that trust that the system isn’t going to do anything you don’t want it to do. There’s always a person issuing the final command. Our command and control system allows for that. I think it’s a little bit of a side note, but you know, there is some of that skepticism from defense officials where they get nervous when you say autonomy or that maybe the system’s going to run without their control, but the operator is in final control.
So if the operator senses that either the drone or the radar isn’t doing what it’s expected or supposed to do, you can just call it off at any point?
Brown: Exactly, and you can set those parameters up in advance too. Not only does the operator set the level of autonomy they’re working with, but even in the end, the drone always has the human as the final controller.
We have also seen a new wave of opinion articles arguing about whether or not the US military or NATO militaries are learning enough from their experiences in Ukraine. Fortem has been on the ground with the DroneHunter for over two and a half years now. What has Fortem’s learning experience been like?
Gruen: Our experiences show that the operational units in Ukraine obviously know what they’re talking about. So that’s who we talk to. I think when you start getting into who’s providing solutions, meaning government bureaucracies on whatever side, you start to have a little less clarity on defined requirements.
And then you start to see elements of “oh, I have something that probably can meet a lot of that. Why don’t we use that?”
You know, off the shelf, prior stocks, things that are slightly modified. That was how it definitely was run early on in an effort to get speed, right? Try to deploy something at speed that could help mitigate the situation.
I think the reality is that small nimble companies is exactly the Ukrainian model, right? Ukraine is standing up 200 plus of its own UAS manufacturers and creating these manufacturing lines to build 100,000 drones a month. That’s all based on their direct ties to the operators and the environment, and being able to purpose-build systems to be effective there.
And the companies that are doing that, that have that direct connection and then are acting on it and building out as much as possible ahead of the threat development, those are the ones that are succeeding over there.
That does sound a lot like what the founder of one of the Ukrainian charities I’ve talked to was saying about how both his charity and the Ukrainian FPV drone manufacturers are usually much more agile in adapting because they have direct lines to the units they’re supporting, so they’re basically very close to the first to know what changes are there and what’s needed.
Gruen: Yeah, you have to have a little bit of risk-tolerant capital involved in that, whether that’s the government putting out development funding, or charities, or venture capitalists. It all kind of depends. You have to have the capital available to allow for that forethought and develop that rapidly. If you try to go through a normal government process, you’re always going to be behind the curve.
You can be ahead of the curve, but you have to fight through all sorts of barriers just to stay that way, it seems.
Gruen: Well, yeah, eventually you’ve got to be working those processes because you got to get through that to get to those large kind of “normal” buckets of money to fund scale production. But, certainly on the development side, you kind of really need those pools of risk-tolerant capital out there.
Have the DOD or other NATO governments come to Fortem to ask about what you and the company have experienced in Ukraine, or is it just primarily going through the sorts of improvements to your products that you’ve made based on experience in Ukraine?
Gruen: We gave a lot of information to the US government on what the reality was over there, especially early on before they really had their own connections. We still share information, but they kind of have established their own direct contacts and get a lot more of it directly now compared to the first year and a half.
Has this also been the case with other NATO members?
Gruen: Yeah, actually. Everyone’s looking for ground truth on what’s going on, what to build and all the rest. So we are active in all of the NATO countries.
Check out our earlier conversation with Fortem Technologies about their work in Ukraine here.