European Union awards grant to forge unmanned ground vehicle standard December 16, 2020 While its human controllers crouch in the relative safety of the trenches, the THeMIS robot rolls over terrain and fires when directed at targets on another hill. (Milrem Robotics) COLOGNE, Germany The European Commission has awarded Estonia and the country’s robotics company Milrem a grant to lead the way on a standard architecture for military unmanned ground vehicles, the company announced. The deal, worth close to $40 million and signed Dec. 11, formally kicks off a pan-European development for a new generation of battlefield ground robots. Named Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System, or iMUGS, the project uses Milrem’s THeMIS vehicle as a reference platform for creating a “standardized European-wide ecosystem for aerial and ground platforms,” according to the company.