MIFIX

MIFIX is the autonomy software stack that Milrem Robotics ships with its tracked unmanned ground vehicles. The Estonian manufacturer introduced it in 2022 as a modular set of intelligent functions for the THeMIS multi-mission UGV and the larger Type-X robotic combat vehicle, replacing earlier teleoperation-only control with semi-autonomous behaviours that reduce operator workload during long missions and free crews to focus on the task rather than the driving.

The package bundles follow-me, waypoint navigation, and obstacle detection and avoidance as its core functions. A vehicle running MIFIX can trail a dismounted soldier or another vehicle without continuous joystick input, drive a pre-planned route between GPS waypoints, and detect both static and moving obstacles using fused inputs from lidar, cameras, GPS, and inertial sensors. The stack is built to be extensible so operators can layer mission-specific software — route planning, casualty evacuation, resupply, mine detection, indirect-fire spotting — on top of the same core navigation layer rather than rewriting the autonomy each time the role changes.

MIFIX has been developed in parallel with Milrem’s leadership of iMUGS, the European Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System programme, which received roughly €32 million from the European Defence Fund and brought together a consortium of European defence firms. iMUGS field demonstrations across Estonia, Latvia, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands between 2021 and 2023 served as practical testbeds for the autonomy work that fed into MIFIX, including manned-unmanned teaming experiments with infantry units and trials of how an autonomous UGV handles itself in a combined-arms exercise.

Operators of THeMIS receive their vehicles with MIFIX preinstalled, with autonomy levels gated to what each customer has procured. THeMIS has been ordered by more than a dozen militaries — among them Estonia, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and Ukraine — and the batch delivered to Ukrainian forces has been used in casualty evacuation and route-clearance roles, exposing the platform and its software to wartime conditions.

In a UGV segment where the chassis side is beginning to commoditise, Milrem positions MIFIX as the differentiator: the layer that turns a remote-controlled tracked frame into a vehicle a small unit can actually use without dedicating a full-time operator to it.