Phase-1 Technical Evaluation
Estonian Ministry of Defence – MoD-Owned Evaluation
Purpose
Any Phase-1 activity, if undertaken, would be a limited, low-risk technical evaluation intended to assess whether SOP-informed autonomous ground behaviour is technically credible under controlled conditions relevant to Estonia’s operating environment.
The autonomy architecture proposed for evaluation is referred to as PERSEUS, comprising a perception module and a behavioural logic framework. PERSEUS would be assessed independently of any specific vehicle or platform.
Any such evaluation would be conducted as a Ministry of Defence-owned learning activity and would not constitute a procurement programme or capability endorsement.
Evaluation Objective
The objective of any Phase-1 evaluation would be to reduce uncertainty around whether an effect-based perception approach combined with SOP-informed behavioural logic can generate consistent, interpretable autonomous ground behaviour under constrained and observable conditions.
The evaluation would focus on observability, explainability, and behavioural consistency, rather than performance, optimisation, or operational effectiveness.
Evaluation Scope
Any Phase-1 evaluation would be deliberately limited in scope and focused on behavioural assessment, not deployment.
The evaluation may explore the interaction between perception components (e.g. terrain, visibility, exposure, uncertainty) and behavioural logic, assessed using an existing unmanned ground vehicle, a representative test platform, or a simulation-to-field hybrid environment, subject to availability and MoD direction.
Behavioural patterns of interest may include exposure avoidance, use of occluding terrain, and movement decisions influenced by perceived environmental risk rather than scripted rules. Operator-visible artefacts and logs would be generated to support transparency and auditability.
Phase-1 would explicitly exclude weapons integration, operational deployment, autonomy certification, and any form of procurement or platform selection. No acquisition decisions would be implied or supported.
Duration and Effort
Any Phase-1 evaluation would be intentionally limited in duration and effort.
Indicative timelines, activity type, and evaluation structure would be defined jointly with the Estonian Ministry of Defence, subject to MoD priorities, scope definition, and resource availability.
Any activity would be conducted with MoD observation and feedback, as appropriate.
Important Clarification
Any Phase-1 evaluation would not constitute a procurement programme, would not imply acquisition intent, and would not commit the Estonian Ministry of Defence to any follow-on activity.
The sole purpose of Phase-1 would be uncertainty reduction — nothing more.
Further Information
For official enquiries relating to technical evaluation or defence experimentation, please refer to the Phase-1 Evaluation overview or contact Praesidium Defence via official channels.
