AETOSWire
TALLINN: Gen (ret) Riho Terras who served as the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces for 7 years and retired in December 2018 joins the team of one of the leading unmanned warfare systems developers Milrem Robotics to head up its Defence Division.
General Terras’ main responsibilities will be establishing Milrem Robotics’ international business development and program support teams, leading the process of gaining a strong foothold in the defence market and bringing end-user specific know-how to company’s strategic R&D activities.
“General Terras’ strong background and experience put him in a good position to grow the company’s international presence and build up our teams worldwide,” explained Kuldar Väärsi, CEO and owner of Milrem Robotics. “Our goal is to be the first choice in every upcoming ground robotics program worldwide,” he added.
“I have gained significant knowledge and built up an international network during my seven years as the CHOD of Estonia and as a member of the Military Committee of NATO and EU. My special fields of interest have been development of disruptive and cyber technologies,” said General Riho Terras.
Gen Terras also worked intensively during the Estonian EU presidency in order to launch Europe’s defence technologies development and PESCO.
“In the last 10 years Estonia has been able to establish a forward looking modern defence industry with ground breaking technologies such as Milrem Robotics’ THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle,” Gen Terras added.
Gen Terras will also be leading the Defence capabilities development in EDIDP program Modular Unmanned Ground Systems (MUGS) led by Milrem Robotics. The project’s objective is to increase situational awareness and force protection of ground units, lighten soldier’s workload, enable faster deployment, increase interoperability and affordability of the ground forces.
In the next five years Milrem Robotics plans to expand significantly. In January Milrem Robotics opened a subsidiary in Sweden in order to engage skilled and experienced engineers.
“The ground robotics market is in the beginning of exponential growth and our products are very well placed. We foresee significant growth of turnover in 2019 and the number of employees will grow from 85 in 2018 to more than 130 this year,” said Kuldar Väärsi.
The company also targets the commercial market (rescue services, border guard, mining and agriculture industries) under the trademark Sinrob (Singular Robotics).
