ASELSAN's YENER Modern Mine Detection System on ARMA 8x8 Reinforces NATO Route Clearance Capabilities at EFES 2026.

During EFES 2026, the Turkish Armed Forces deployed the YENER 100-G Modern Mine Detection System integrated on Otokar’s ARMA 8x8 armored vehicle, presenting a high-value combat engineering capability built around route clearance, counter-IED protection, and armored mobility support. Held in the Seferihisar district of İzmir, EFES 2026 is one of Türkiye’s largest combined joint live-fire exercises, designed to test land, naval, air, amphibious, special operations, and multinational command capabilities in a demanding Aegean scenario.

At the Distinguished Observer Day of the EFES-2026 Combined Joint Live-Fire Exercise, held on May 20–21 in Seferihisar, İzmir, Army Recognition Group had the honor of attending one of the event’s most significant aviation sequences. Beyond the aviation display, the appearance of YENER 100-G showed another decisive dimension of Turkish military power: the ability to open and protect ground corridors before maneuver forces, logistics convoys, artillery batteries, air-defense units, and follow-on formations move into contested terrain. EFES 2026 gathered forces and delegations from 50 countries, with more than 10,000 personnel taking part, highlighting Türkiye’s position as a major NATO Ally capable of hosting and commanding complex multinational field operations.

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The Turkish Armed Forces deployed the YENER 100-G mine detection and counter-IED system on the Otokar ARMA 8x8 during EFES 2026, highlighting Türkiye’s expanding NATO combat engineering and protected mobility capabilities (Picture Source: Army Recognition Group)

YENER 100-G, developed by ASELSAN and integrated on Otokar’s ARMA 8x8 tactical wheeled armored vehicle, is designed to detect improvised explosive devices and mine threats concealed beneath road surfaces and along roadside areas. Its mission architecture brings together target detection, target marking, electro-optic surveillance, and jamming-based self-protection, elevating the platform from a conventional detection vehicle into a protected combat engineering asset built for the contested routes of modern warfare. In operational terms, YENER 100-G acts as a mobility-assurance system, enabling Turkish combat engineers and allied formations to identify hazardous ground, mark suspected threats, preserve convoy tempo, and reduce the ability of mines and IEDs to turn key axes of advance into choke points for maneuver forces.

The technical strength of YENER 100-G comes from its layered detection architecture, which gives the platform a mission profile closer to a sensor-fusion combat engineering vehicle than a conventional mine detector. The system brings together Ground Penetrating Radar, identified as YENER, with an EMI sensor, SAR in the vehicle movement direction, MIMO technology, cable detection, target identification, automatic soil calibration, and high-resolution 2D/3D display. This combination gives the crew a broader technical picture of the hidden battlefield beneath and along the road, including mine threats, improvised explosive devices, buried cables, metallic signatures, and suspicious roadside indicators. The integrated YENER 100-G and EMI sensor detection capability is especially valuable because modern explosive threats rarely present a single signature. By combining subsurface radar detection, electromagnetic sensing, target identification, soil calibration, and visual display tools, YENER 100-G supports faster interpretation of the route ahead and gives commanders a more reliable basis for deciding whether a corridor can be used by follow-on forces.

YENER 100-G also brings an electronic protection and command-and-control layer that directly supports counter-IED and route-clearance missions in contested operating conditions. Its jammer system, Karetta anti-jamming GPS, ANS-510K land inertial navigation system, vehicle tracking system, 9661 V/UHF software-defined radio, and intercommunication system help the platform maintain navigation, coordination, and tactical connectivity when the electromagnetic environment becomes unstable or deliberately disrupted. The vehicle and system remote-control capability adds another operational option when the route ahead presents a high-risk zone or suspected explosive threat area. In this role, YENER 100-G is not only searching for mines; it is helping transform route clearance into a protected mobility operation, where detection, electronic protection, navigation resilience, communications, and stand-off control work together to preserve the movement of the force.

The system’s interaction with terrain gives it a distinctive place in combat engineering operations, particularly in missions where the success of a maneuver force depends on opening ground corridors before heavier units advance. YENER 100-G includes automatic forward and left/right EMI/YENER panel movement mechanisms, a target marking system, obstacle sensing with LIDAR, and an ATS-61 electro-optic system mounted on a telescopic movement mechanism. This combination allows the crew to inspect the route ahead, observe roadside sectors, detect obstacles, mark suspected targets, and support the route-clearance process before armored vehicles, artillery, air-defense systems, command posts, medical evacuation vehicles, fuel trucks, and ammunition convoys move through the area. In an EFES-style operational scenario, such a vehicle could support an amphibious force expanding inland from a beachhead by helping secure the road network needed for follow-on maneuver. This is where YENER 100-G becomes a first-in combat engineering asset: it helps create safer ground on which the rest of the operation can build momentum.

Protection is central to the vehicle’s battlefield credibility, because route-clearance crews operate at the point where hidden explosive threats, ambush risk, and forward maneuver intersect. YENER 100-G integrates a Stabilized Advanced Remote Weapon Platform, SARP, a rocket passive protection kit, armor protection against explosives conforming to STANAG 4569, Level 4A and 4B protection references, and STANAG 4569 Level 4 protection against kinetic-energy ammunition. These features give the platform a survivability profile suited to missions close to the forward edge of maneuver, where mine and IED threats may be combined with direct fire, explosive obstacles, electronic disruption, or hostile action against engineering teams. The SARP remote weapon platform gives the crew a protected response option, while the armored protection, passive rocket protection, jammer, and remote-control functions help reduce exposure during high-risk route-clearance operations. This combination of detection, protection, and controlled mobility is what gives YENER 100-G its operational value for Turkish forces and NATO Allied formations facing the persistent challenge of hidden explosive hazards.

Otokar’s ARMA 8x8 gives the YENER mission package the armored mobility base required for this role. ARMA 8x8 is a modular wheeled armored platform designed to carry different mission equipment and weapon systems, with independent suspension, run-flat tires, central tire inflation system, anti-lock braking system, longitudinal and transverse differential locks, high power-to-weight ratio, high ground clearance, and favorable approach and departure angles for difficult terrain. These features are especially valuable for a mine-detection system, because the vehicle must move slowly enough to scan, yet remain mobile enough to accompany mechanized forces, cross damaged roads, operate in difficult soil conditions, and survive in forward areas. In the YENER 100-G configuration, Otokar’s platform and ASELSAN’s mission architecture form a Turkish-built route-clearance vehicle able to combine mobility, protection, sensors, jamming, navigation, communications, and target marking in one package.

The wider geostrategic signal from EFES 2026 is clear. Türkiye sits at the junction of the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, and the maritime approaches linking Europe to wider trade and security routes. In this geography, ground access and secure movement are never purely tactical issues. Mines, improvised explosive devices, remote mining, roadside bombs, and explosive obstacles can delay NATO deployments, threaten logistics corridors, complicate amphibious lodgment expansion, and turn border zones or coastal approaches into dangerous choke points. By fielding YENER 100-G at EFES 2026, Türkiye demonstrated that it is investing not only in strike systems, drones, air defense, and naval aviation, but also in the engineering assets that keep allied maneuver alive after the first contact with enemy defenses.

The wars and crises of recent years have shown that hidden explosive threats can shape the tempo of entire campaigns. In Ukraine, dense minefields, remote mining, anti-tank mines, drone-observed obstacle belts, and artillery-covered approaches have slowed armored movement and forced combat engineers into some of the most dangerous missions on the battlefield. In the Middle East, improvised explosive devices and roadside bombs have long targeted patrols, logistics convoys, and stabilization forces. YENER 100-G reflects this operational lesson with a Turkish solution designed for the modern threat environment: radar and electromagnetic detection for buried hazards, electro-optics and LIDAR for observation and obstacle awareness, jamming for radio-triggered threats, resilient navigation for contested electromagnetic conditions, remote operation for high-risk routes, and armor protection for crews working in exposed areas.

This deployment also highlights the industrial depth and operational maturity of Türkiye’s defense sector. ASELSAN provides the radar, electronic warfare, electro-optical, navigation, communications, remote-control, and mission-system integration layer, while Otokar delivers the ARMA 8x8 armored platform that carries this specialized capability into the field. Together, they demonstrate Türkiye’s evolution from armored vehicle production toward full-spectrum mission integration, where sensors, software, electronic protection, survivability, mobility, and command connectivity are fused into one battlefield-ready system. For the Turkish Armed Forces, YENER 100-G strengthens soldier protection, route security, and freedom of maneuver. For NATO Allied Forces, it represents a front-line Turkish contribution to route clearance, counter-IED operations, convoy protection, and mobility support across complex theaters where hidden explosive threats remain among the most persistent obstacles to operational tempo.

At EFES 2026, YENER 100-G showed that the first battle of maneuver may be fought beneath the surface, before tanks advance, before artillery relocates, and before logistics convoys cross exposed ground. By deploying this system on the Otokar ARMA 8x8, the Turkish Armed Forces presented a capability that protects soldiers, preserves operational tempo, and strengthens NATO freedom of movement in contested terrain. For Türkiye, it is a statement of national engineering, battlefield experience, and military foresight. For the Alliance, it is a route-clearance shield produced by a NATO member whose geography, industrial power, and operational discipline give it a distinctive role in collective security. YENER 100-G transforms mine detection from a slow engineering task into a protected, sensor-driven mobility operation, allowing Turkish and allied forces to open ground corridors before an adversary can turn hidden explosives into operational paralysis.

Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.