Every uncrewed vehicle that IDV builds, from a small four-wheeled robot through to a converted 40-tonne Terrier, runs the same British-written software, and at the heart of that software sits an unusual capability that the UK Defence Journal was able to watch in action at the company’s proving ground at MIRA in Nuneaton, a patented navigation system that lets the vehicle find its way with no satellite signal at all.
The wider system, which the company calls MACE, is the part that turns a vehicle into a robot, and Dr Geoff Davis, the managing director of IDV UK, described it in the simplest possible terms. “We’ve got MACE, that’s the brains, the technology that allows you to operate a vehicle as a robotic and autonomous vehicle, so that’s all the heavy compute and the sensors,” he said.
The navigation element is called ATLAS, it has been developed over many years at MIRA, and Andrew Maloney, the head of technology and chief engineer at IDV Robotics, explained to the UK Defence Journal that the approach owes far more to a soldier reading a paper map than it does to a conventional satnav. “Like a soldier with an OS map, if you like. It’s kind of biologically inspired in that way,” he said, before setting out how the artificial intelligence underpinning it had matured. “Around 2014 we were already using a lot of computer vision for the autonomy, and then convolutional neural networks came out and Nvidia hardware came out, and that’s led to an explosion in capability which is still continuing,” he said.
Most of the work happens before the vehicle has even moved, with aerial or satellite imagery of the operating area run through artificial intelligence that learns the ground in advance. “We take the aerial or satellite imagery, run an AI over it and classify all that terrain, then convert that into polygon boundaries, largely to compress the data, and store it in a spatial database,” Maloney explained, and the result is a memory of the landscape, its road edges, treelines and buildings, that the vehicle carries with it rather than something it has to be told over a radio link.
Once it is under way the vehicle compares what its cameras can see against that stored map and weighs up thousands of possibilities for where it must be, and during the demonstration at MIRA the team ran the GPS-denied solution alongside a conventional satellite-based one so that the difference could be seen directly. “When we’ve got edges of tracks and roads, we can be like ten-centimetre accurate, which is good enough to drive autonomously down the road, which is what we do,” Maloney said, adding that because the map is held in real-world coordinates the system produces a grid reference “just the same as a GPS would,” and explaining that the underlying mathematics is robust enough to cope with a battlefield that refuses to match the map. “It has lots of hypotheses in a probabilistic filter, and if half the stuff is destroyed or there’s new stuff, it still makes sense, just like you would if you were looking at a map,” he said.
The system can also be brought to life in places where there is no signal to begin with, Maloney described an arrangement that places the soldier firmly in control of where the vehicle believes it is. “If you’re totally denied at the start, you can initialise it by clicking on the map, saying I think I’m here, or you can type in a grid where you think you are, and then it will converge,” he said, describing a process that allows the vehicle to settle quickly onto an accurate fix without ever reaching for a satellite.
The entire design assumes the worst about the modern battlefield, namely that it will be saturated with electronic warfare and that anything which transmits will quickly be hunted down, which is precisely why the company has pushed so hard towards a vehicle that can operate without ever giving itself away. “The idea is we’re moving towards autonomy where the vehicle doesn’t have to communicate. It’s totally passive,” Maloney said. “If you emit anything, someone’s geolocating you and trying to take you out. We’re expected to be GPS-denied, intermittent comms, so we have to work with that. Contested environments are just the normal situation.”
For all the engineering that goes into the driving, the company is at pains to point out that the platform only matters because of what it carries, a philosophy Dr Davis captured in a phrase he returned to several times during the briefing. “It’s effectively like a skateboard now. The value comes from what you put on top of it,” he said, and he gave a concrete example of how the artificial intelligence pulls those payloads together into something more than the sum of its parts. “An example would be using ISTAR to automatically detect objects and send the waypoints and what it sees to other vehicles that may have a lethal payload on,” he said.
That ambition rests on the vehicle being woven into the wider command network rather than operating as an island, and Maloney said much of the team’s effort now goes into exactly that integration. “Increasingly it’s more about the system and the capability you’re getting from this uncrewed system, so we’re doing a lot of battle space management integration, and this is part of the digital backbone, the digital targeting web,” he said, explaining that a surveillance-configured vehicle can do the finding entirely on its own. “The autonomous ISTAR can go out and geolocate targets autonomously and then pump them out, like the TAC or attack system, so we can pump out that target data and images of targets onto the TAK,” he said, adding that the same connections work in reverse, so that “if you have payloads fitted, it will discover those, and then give you all the menus and functions for that payload.”
Underpinning all of it is a relationship between the soldier and the machine that the company believes has shifted with the war in Ukraine, moving from a question of saving manpower to one of saving lives. “Before Ukraine, UK MOD was fixed on not having enough soldiers, needing to reduce workload, but now Ukraine has made people realise, actually, you just don’t want to be there getting killed,” Maloney told us, and he stressed that the human stays in charge of the decisions that matter. “That teaming between the person and the system is key, having the human either in the loop or on the loop making decisions, and things like follow-me functionality where a UGV can follow you around the battlefield,” he said.
Recognising what it is looking at is a problem the company has had to solve without the luxury of real-world data, and it has turned to simulation to fill the gap, in one project teaching the system entirely inside a synthetic world that generated many thousands of labelled images of a tank across varying weather, lighting and terrain. “The system had never seen a real tank, it had only ever seen simulated tanks, but then it was able to recognise tanks,” he said, and he was clear that the perception software is the company’s own work rather than something bought off the shelf. “It’s by us. We buy the cameras and those parts, but all the software we’ve done, and increasingly we plug and play with Five Eyes, who constantly retrain the network models,” he said, describing a system that can be sent out to patrol quietly, geolocate whatever it finds and break cover only to send a short report in a low-bandwidth burst, with the resulting target information arriving as thumbnails and grid references on soldiers’ smartphones through the TAK system used by British and American forces.
From reports from Ukraine it seems a lot of the autonomy software allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian logistics is UK developed.
However you won’t see a mention of this on the Times, Telegraph, Mail, Sky News or the Guardian. Not a single ex general that makes up their talking head “experts” will tell you about any of this because it doesn’t sell enough clicks and it detracts from their narrative of the UK being shit at everything.
We quite rightly banned Palestine Action for being a foreign proxy movement intent on causing our country harm. I’m not sure how we can’t ban any of these organisations for doing the same.
Atleast the people at Palestine Action were not in it for the cash unlike these sell outs. Everyone of these “institutions” is foreign owned and controlled and subject to zero regulation while peddling themselves as providers of news.
Media regulation is a key component of a healthy democracy where news is verifiable facts not opinions without a strong basis in fact. Whilst ownership, bias and factuality vary considerably a news aggregator that is able to present that spread of bias and factuality is an important tool.
I prefer ground dot news slash Denys which provides 40% off their vantage plan.
It’s obvious that foreign interference in the democratic process is enabled by weak media regulation and the USA is a case in point. Faux news presents opinion as if it were fact and repeats FSB talking points to the gullible who have no critical thinking skills rather a list for entertainment aka Confirmation Bias at the extreme.
In the ruzzian war in Ukraine the first country to surrender was the USA…
Time to defend the Republic against enemies foreign and domestic starting with Constitutional reform to prevent foreign interference.
America Alone is weaker and poorer until then…
That’s a great point lonprb, the USA was the first country to surrender in the Ukraine war.
It’s a prime example of what a badly regulated media and an illiterate electorate can do.
Unfortunately the UK is just behind them.
It was explained to me by someone in the Parliamentary Labour Party recently that there is no point in us raising defence spending to counter Russia at the cost of votes by for instance cutting the basic state pension or raising taxes as this action would open the door for a man who is literally in the kremlin’s payroll and has already stated he would withdraw all support for Ukraine.
You can kind of see the logic in that statement.
The UK’s most important contribution to NATO and European security is in the background through diplomacy, intelligence, planning, research and development and all this is potentially up for grabs in 2029. It’s certainly horrifying to me that so many in the UK are ready to vote for a guy who takes £5million “gifts” from questionable foreign interests and who has been paid in numerous occasion’s by RT news to sell out the UK.
The same people were going daft at the prospect if free gear kier getting glasses and suits paid for my official party donors in 2024.
Yes, I can see some political desperation, however “Welfare or Warfare” is not the correct choice because it assumes that only public finance can do the job.
The The Defence Investors’ Advisory Group (DIAG) is a logical step having realised that public funding can’t cover the Defence Investment Plan so private investment is required.
We bailed out the bankers in 2008 and now its their turn to invest in Defence since their business depends on peace and stability. Lower risk means lower cost for Defence Investment Bonds than standard Gilts. It’s essential Investment not Spending on political preferences.
Thus the 3.5% GDP Defence spending target for 2030, and 2.75% GDP for 2027 are affordable without tax increases. A long term investment plan for national security.
A requirement for a banking licence, so a mandatory duty not optional opportunity. Ethical investment means defending people that you expect to profit from.
Over to UK & European Defence and Finance Ministers to make it happen. Banks must do their Duty or face Windfall Taxes. This must apply across Europe so nobody is disadvantaged and all citizens are defended.
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Hopefully we can win this war before the traitor get anywhere near number 10 downing street.
Hold on. You want to ban news websites for being insufficiently positive about Britain? Really?
It’s an established information management strategy to divide and conquer by suppressing what people have in common and highlighting their differences. The online and legacy media behavior known as ‘click-bait’ or media panic is to encourage outrage and division to polarise groups, ultimately voters.
That’s a synonym for the big tech attention economy where engagement has priority over accuracy or truthful discussion. Sadly many people buy into this and see it as self-expression, whilst the reality is that they are being manipulated for profit.
I suppose that many publications believe that they have no choice in this as the platforms of the tech bros are huge and wealthy so fierce competition for that attention, and advertising revenue, for example.
We still have a choice to be led and monitised in that way, or to understand who benefits and safeguard our attention to better quality content..
The Telegraph
“Britain’s £1bn tank delayed by gearbox flaws
Project leaders working on the Challenger 3 upgrade programme are grappling with engineering problems”
I expected Jim to think how much less the defence budget would be if the media did not pointed issues…
The first thing to understand is that the current moral of Western Europe there is no cultural power to sustain armed forces.
Political will is key and requires clear messages that are explained well.
The Strategic Defence Review covered this as a transformation to All-Of-Nation Defence. I believe that means that everyone would understand that all the things they want the government to do depend on Defence, which is the first duty of the government. So it follows that the political trope that there are no votes in Defence would be replaced by voters accepting that Defence is the price of freedom and so not an optional cost of being a nation state. Freedom is not free.
So it is the duty of government to educate, and inform the nation of the threats and mitigations those require, just like the SDR All-Of-Government transformation to align Foreign Office, Defence and Treasury. The post world war 2 assumption that most people understood why fascism or dictatorship generally were unacceptable and worth preventing seems to have eroded as that generation passed, and 80 years of peace and stability made successive generations assume that was their birthright not something they needed to pay attention or taxes to.
Removing National Service under the concept of a professional armed force was another weakening of understanding and political will for Defence. Whilst the professionals may have liked the simplification of Infantry Basic Training provision, I suspect that they missed the bigger picture effect on political will.
It’s very noticeable that the nations that still have National Service have much greater political will for freedom and Defence, right up to joining NATO.
Generations without knowledge of 20th century history and the key events of it, are not going to care like their grandparents did. Determined misinformation campaigns by bad actors including foreign states also have a significant effect. It’s so much easier to defeat an army at the ballot box than on the battlefield. Brilliant value for money…
Jim,
I think you are starting with a few completely valid frustrations here, but the conclusion you have leapt to, banning major national newspapers, is incredibly, stupid, dangerous and completely misinterprets how both a free society and wartime journalism actually work.
It’s true that British media can be deeply cynical and that negative headlines drive massive digital engagement. It is also completely fair to debate the influence of foreign billionaires owning large chunks of our press infrastructure.
However, taking those messy realities of corporate media and concluding that Times, Telegraph, Mail, Sky News or the Guardian are coordinated in foreign psychological operations intent on harming the UK is where this turns into a massive, paranoid conspiracy theory, supporting the supposition that you are either
A/ Emotionally burnt out.
B/ Emotionally burnt out.
C/ Emotionally burnt out.
Banning them because you dislike their editorial tone would instantly turn Britain from a liberal democracy into an authoritarian regime.
Your comparison to Palestine Action is flawed in logical and critical reasoning. Palestine Action was banned because it is a militant activist group engaging in systematic criminal damage and trespassing to disrupt defense businesses.
Mainstream media outlets are commercial businesses publishing political speech and journalism, which are heavily protected under UK law.
If a government is given the power to ban a left-wing paper today for being too negative, a different administration will use that exact same power to ban a right-wing paper tomorrow.
Who gets to decide what counts as “harming the country”? … Harming the country” is not a subjective political label in a legal sense; it is a collection of specific, defined offences. Whether an act qualifies as such is determined by the letter of the law, as passed by Parliament, the evidence; gathered by police, and the final verdict; delivered by the courts.
Furthermore, your assumption that the media isn’t reporting on UK-developed autonomy software because positive news “doesn’t sell clicks” completely misses the reality of defense reporting.
If British software is secretly driving deep-strike drones inside Russia, that is highly classified military intelligence.
The UK operates under the DSMA-Notice system, a voluntary code where editors agree not to publish specific details about sensitive technology or active military operations to protect operational security and save lives.
Journalists cannot report on software algorithms they are legally and practically barred from seeing.
You clearly care a lot about British engineering and want to see the country’s successes celebrated, which is fair enough. But the solution to media bias and cynicism isn’t to silence the press and destroy the very democratic freedoms you want to defend.
Stripping away freedom of the speech just to punish journalists you disagree with is exactly how a democracy begins to erode.
We’re making good use of the war as testing grounds there but it will all be for naught if we don’t have a decent armed forces to implement what we learn. Hopefully Rachel from accounts has taken note of the backlash and loosened some strings. Folorn hope I know
The Peace Dividend delusion has allowed politicians to safeguard their electoral prospects by shifting Defence spending to social provision and even war in Europe hasn’t enabled them to pivot back to Defence.
The Strategic Defence Review includes Transformation to whole of government behaviour meaning Foreign Office, Defence and Treasury alignment to the threat assessment, investment required,and funding. Yet it appears that the DIP doesn’t yet represent that Transformation.
The The Defence Investors’ Advisory Group (DIAG) is a logical step having realised that public funding can’t cover the Defence Investment Plan so private investment is required.
We bailed out the bankers in 2008 and now its their turn to invest in Defence since their business depends on peace and stability. Lower risk means lower cost for Defence Investment Bonds than standard Gilts. It’s essential Investment not Spending on political preferences.
Thus the 3.5% GDP Defence spending target for 2030, and 2.75% GDP for 2027 are affordable without tax increases. A long term investment plan for national security.
A requirement for a banking licence, so a mandatory duty not optional opportunity. Ethical investment means defending people that you expect to profit from.
Over to UK & European Defence and Finance Ministers to make it happen. Banks must do their Duty or face Windfall Taxes. This must apply across Europe so nobody is disadvantaged and all citizens are defended.
A 3.5% target for 2030? If only.
That can’t happen without a transformation in the relationship between government banks and customers. Ethical investment means defending people that you expect to profit from and that’s not a free opportunity rather comes with a duty of care…
Change to the social contract and finance.
Lonprfb,
The reality of defense investment bonds – A bond is essentially a form of government debt, regardless of its name. Whether the government labels them “Defense Bonds” or standard Gilts, they remain a liability on the national balance sheet.
Risk and cost – The claim that these bonds would have a “lower cost” than standard Gilts is economically unorthodox. Bond yields are primarily driven by market demand and the creditworthiness of the government, so unless the government offers specific tax incentives or guarantees, investors will continue to demand a yield that reflects the prevailing interest rates and the risk of holding sovereign debt.
The crowding out effect – Issuing a large volume of new debt, even for a specific cause, can “crowd out” private investment by absorbing capital that might otherwise go toward private sector projects. When the government borrows money to fund massive defence infrastructure projects, it increases the total demand for capital. This can push up interest rates, making it more expensive for private businesses to borrow money for their own investments.
Investment vs. spending – While the argument classifies defence as essential investment, military spending does not typically generate a financial return in the same way as infrastructure or R&D. Economists often debate the multiplier effect of such spending; while it may boost industrial capacity, it often provides lower long-term growth benefits compared to investments in education or civilian infrastructure.
The fiscal challenge – Reaching a 3.5% GDP target for defence is a significant fiscal commitment. If the government plans to achieve this without tax increases, it must either find significant spending efficiencies elsewhere or increase borrowing. A permanent rise in defence spending creates structural pressure on the budget, and if economic growth does not keep pace, it may lead to higher debt servicing costs, which will restrict future fiscal flexibility.
Banking sector incentives – While it is true that the financial sector relies on peace and stability, banks allocate capital based on risk adjusted returns rather than … moral obligation. They are unlikely to prioritise funding the national military budget unless these bonds offer a competitive return compared to other safehaven assets.
Financial stability – While peace and stability are indeed public goods that allow financial systems to function, banks allocate capital based on risk-adjusted returns. The banking sector is already highly sensitive to geopolitical instability, as international conflicts can disrupt markets, trigger capital flight, and create massive operational risks. Banks typically manage this by diversifying their portfolios … not by specifically funding a nation’s military budget.
Whether it is a Gilt or a Defense Bond, it is still government debt that must be serviced through future taxes or economic growth.
——–
For the 2025–26 financial year –
– The UK’s spending on servicing public sector net debt was approximately £110 billion.
– In the context of the broader national economy, this figure represents 3.6% of GDP.
– 8.1% of total public spending. A significant portion of the annual budget is now directed towards servicing existing liabilities.
– 9% of non-interest receipts is the portion of government income; tax and other receipts currently required to cover net interest payments on the national debt.
– The cost of servicing UK debt remains highly sensitive to inflation, particularly through index-linked gilts, where the capital uplift in interest payments rises and falls alongside the Retail Prices Index.
– Public sector net debt is estimated at 93.8% of GDP as of March 2026, these interest costs represent a substantial, ongoing pressure on the public finances.
Total debt by the end of March 2026, the total public sector net debt stood at approximately £2,911 billion … that’s £2.9 trillion.
– The proportion of spending, the debt interest payments consumed roughly 8.1% of total public spending, making it one of the largest single items in the national budget.
– Relative to GDP these interest payments were equivalent to about 3.6% of GDP.
A significant portion of this cost is driven by inflation, particularly through index-linked gilts, where the capital uplift … the increase in the value of the debt principal due to inflation … is paid out to holders. In April 2026 alone, for instance, capital uplift accounted for £2.9 billion of the total £10.3 billion paid in interest for that month.
The total debt is nearly £3 trillion, the annual interest cost of £110 billion reflects the cost of servicing that debt based on current market interest rates and the existing stock of government bonds; gilts.
——–
Because of high inflation and interest rate hikes in recent years, this is currently at the highest levels seen in the past 50 years.
It remains a political choice to prioritise national security over other areas of expenditure. Ultimately, any additional spending must be paid for through either taxation, economic growth, or increased government debt, the latter of which carries its own long term risks.
The other problem of late / right now is … circular dependency problem.
The government’s ‘Engine for Growth’ strategy is effectively stalled because it has disengaged its two most vital components the strategic blueprint aka … the DIP and the Investment Mechanism (DIAG).
The government has effectively announced the partnership before they have defined the business plan. Until the DIP provides that clarity, the private sector remains on the sidelines, waiting for the government to provide the predictable, long-term infrastructure signals you noted are essential for true industrial growth.
It is a high-stakes waiting game where the cost of the delay is being paid in industry confidence and lost time in a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment.
Tired of plain text. Rich text formatting in the comments will be a blessing when in implemented.
Magenta, thanks for your thoughtful reply and explanation of free market economics.
My key point is that government must have the courage to change the law across Europe so that banking licences include a duty for Defence Investment that can either be completed with Defence Investment Bonds specifically (carrot) or when not compliant with Windfall Taxes (stick).
That’s no longer a free market rather a duty to defend the people that banks expect to profit from. The cost of doing business as Freedom is not free.
Since none of European governments have a credible plan for their 3.5% GDP Defence Investment there should be general agreement that banks must do their Duty. Whatever short term reaction there is, Europe is too large to ignore when every bank has the same duty.
Sounds good. Don’t sell it off to another country and more importantly don’t share it with our so called “allies” which there’s no such thing of. Every country is looking after themselves first.