Overland AI ULTRA, the robotic vehicle tested by the United States Army in Georgia

Drones are already revolutionizing air and sea defense, as we've seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Fering Pioneer X, a vehicle for special forces with up to 7,000 km of autonomy
Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), the solution to a problem created with the successor to the Humvee

However, land vehicles seem to be resisting these innovations. After all, moving on land is much more difficult than moving in the air or at sea, as there are many more obstacles, and a robotic vehicle would have to be truly autonomous and have considerable environmental recognition capabilities to avoid getting caught in any terrain hazards.

A Seattle, WA company seems determined to change that. Overland AI has been involved in the development of robotic ground vehicles in collaboration with DARPA and the US Armed Forces. This range of systems includes wheeled (the General Dynamics S-MET and the Polaris RZR Turbo S4) and tracked (the Textron Ripsaw M5) vehicles. In April 2025, Overland AI launched its own autonomous robotic vehicle: the ULTRA.

This robotic vehicle can reach speeds of 56 km/h (35 mph) off-road, with high-performance movements, recognizing and avoiding obstacles. It's also programmed to operate in swarms, like aerial drones, with a single operator controlling multiple vehicles. After all, the human operator doesn't drive the vehicles; they drive themselves.

This vehicle is equipped with a SPARK system developed by Overland AI, with LiDAR cameras that detect the terrain using lasers, generating 3D models that allow the vehicle to know at all times where it is moving. SPARK is combined with the OverDrive software developed by this American company, offering these robotic vehicles complete autonomy on rough terrain and at high speeds. Here we can see the presentation video of the Overland AI ULTRA, which gives us an idea of its capabilities:

Two weeks ago, Overland AI showed off the capabilities of its SPARK and OverDrive systems with this video, which shows a Polaris RZR light vehicle equipped with those systems moving fully autonomously through a pine forest: "The challenge is determining what vegetation is crushable, what must be avoided, and how to find the way to the next check point under dense canopy that makes satellite data unusable. Everything about this environment is hard for autonomy: It's hard to see due to the undergrowth, hard to plan when the vehicle can perceive nothing but trees, and hard to steer the vehicle through narrow gaps between the pines," the company notes:

This Wednesday, NATO's Joint Allied Command in Brunssum (JFCBS) announced that during exercise Agile Spirit 25, US Army soldiers tested these robotic vehicles at the Vaziani training ground in the Republic of Georgia. This afternoon, Overland AI published a video of these tests:

This assessment was conducted by members of the 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy: "Over the next two weeks, ULTRA will support live training missions with U.S. Army Soldiers across rough, forested terrain at the Vaziani Training Area," Overland AI notes.

ULTRA vehicles are being used in this exercise for fully autonomous resupply missions, including point-to-point cargo delivery. Using robotic vehicles for this purpose has the advantage of not risking human lives to deliver supplies to forward positions in an area of operations.

The Overland AI ULTRA is a modular vehicle, so it can be used in different missions. In the presentation video released in April by this American company we can see both its use as a logistics vehicle, which is the mission it is carrying out in the Agile Spirit 25 exercise in Georgia, and also as a drone launch platform and as an armed vehicle.

In May, Overland AI noted that the ULTRA has a payload capacity of 1,000 pounds (453.5 kg) and a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers). "ULTRA can navigate environments ranging from dense forests to volcanic ridges," Byron Boots, co-founder and CEO of Overland AI. "This empowers the warfighter to win in crucial contested theaters like the Indo-Pacific while keeping them out of harm’s way."

In 2024, Overland AI was awarded a two-year contract worth up to $18.6 million from the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit to develop its OverDrive technology platform for the U.S. Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV), a program also competing with companies such as Anduril and Palantir.

---

Images: Overland AI / US Army National Guard / NATO Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum.