VARAN – VisionWave

The UGV that doesn't have to give you away

Conventional systems used to navigate and communicate on the battlefield can be detected. Radar, laser scanning, a radio link: each emits a signal an adversary can observe and target. Ukraine has made it clear that this trade-off is lethal.

VisionWave VARAN™ is designed to avoid it. It can navigate using cameras, thermal imaging and 3D vision alone, plan its route onboard, and operate with no link back to you. Push it forward into hostile ground without betraying its position, or yours, when it matters most. It sees without being seen.

Built for the most contested environments

GPS-denied and jammed conditions are failure states for most autonomous systems. For VARAN, it’s business as usual. When the link drops, it keeps working on onboard AI.

One platform, eight jobs, fewer people at risk

Swap the payload module in the field, in minutes. One chassis retasks across ISTAR, air defence, counter-UAS, casualty evacuation, logistics, route clearance, force protection, electronic warfare, and forward observation. Smaller units can project more capability forward, with fewer people in harm’s way, and when the mission changes, your platform changes with it.

Goes where standard vehicles can't, carries what your soldiers shouldn't

VARAN analyses the ground and changes its own stance: low and fast at up to 45mph across open terrain, then raised to clear water, rubble, and urban obstacles, no operator input needed. Each wheel drives independently, turning on the spot in tight spaces. It carries 400kg and tows over 1,000kg, reaching positions that would otherwise need soldiers on foot.

Stays in the fight

Lose a wheel arm and VARAN will still complete the mission and return under its own power. Dual-motor redundancy and real-time health monitoring mean no mission lost, no need to achieve recovery under fire.

Fixed by the people using it, wherever they are

Common modular parts and a field repair kit issued as standard let the operator repair it in theatre, far from any support infrastructure, keeping it operational.

Yours to adapt, yours to own

It is an open platform. Fit your own sensors, embed national cryptography, develop your own payloads, and own your through-life support. Engineered in the UK with manufacture planned through local partners, VARAN lets adopting nations build genuine sovereign capability.

VARAN proves it. STRATUM scales it.

VARAN is the flagship of VisionWave’s STRATUM™ ecosystem: a connected family of air and ground platforms, counter-UAS, and passive sensing sharing common parts, training, and sustainment. The passive perception, field serviceability, and open design that define VARAN run across every platform.

Adopt VARAN and you step into an operational architecture you can grow into, with one training pipeline and one sustainment model throughout. VisionWave built STRATUM around operational simplicity. We seek to give you capability you can physically and financially field at scale.

At the heart of the ecosystem is STRATUM AI, a central AI-enabled system that orchestrates and supervises all components as a homogeneous unit, analysing, reasoning, and informing decisions in real time.