Ukrainian-Estonian DefenseTech company NORDA Dynamics and American Palladyne AI (NASDAQ: PDYN) have agreed to integrate their technologies to create systems in which a group of drones can autonomously detect, distribute, and track multiple targets simultaneously.
Ukrainian-Estonian DefenseTech company NORDA Dynamics and American Palladyne AI (NASDAQ: PDYN) have agreed to integrate their technologies to create systems in which a group of drones can autonomously detect, distribute, and track multiple targets simultaneously.
It is a combination of the SwarmOS collective autonomy platform from Palladyne AI and the Underdog autonomous targeting system from NORDA Dynamics.
The idea is to combine two levels of autonomy. SwarmOS is responsible for the behavior of a group of drones, and Underdog is responsible for performing the task as a separate platform.
SwarmOS allows multiple drones to operate as a group without centralized control. The system can collaboratively detect and classify targets, distribute them among drones, and track multiple moving or static objects simultaneously.
Once integrated, data about the assigned targets will be transmitted directly to Underdog. The NORDA system is now responsible for the final stage — autonomous pursuit and guidance of a specific drone to the assigned target.
According to the companies, this should allow each device to independently perform its part of the mission, while the entire swarm will adapt to the situation and redistribute tasks between platforms.
At the same time, decisions about hitting targets remain under human control.
Another feature of the integration is the ability to operate in conditions of loss of communication. Underdog is designed to autonomously approach the target, in particular in situations where the operator loses the control channel due to electronic warfare or GPS becomes unavailable.
«We created the NORDA ecosystem to ensure autonomy at all stages of the mission: navigation when GPS is unavailable; target recognition when communications are suppressed; and landing when there is no possibility to do it manually,» said Nazar Bihun, co-founder and CEO of NORDA Dynamics.
According to him, Underdog has already undergone tens of thousands of real-world combat applications, while SwarmOS allows unmanned platforms to work as a single team without constant centralized control.
Palladyne AI President and CEO Ben Wolff noted that SwarmOS can coordinate different types of drones, allowing them to simultaneously detect and track multiple targets, distribute them among themselves, and then transmit the information to the NORDA system for guidance to the target.
As part of the collaboration, the companies plan to integrate the technologies on one or more unmanned platforms and conduct a joint demonstration. However, this still requires obtaining the appropriate government permits.
NORDA Dynamics claims that its technologies are used by more than 200 units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, and the company’s products are integrated with dozens of Ukrainian drone manufacturers.
According to the company, its solutions have been used in more than 100,000 real combat missions. Separately, NORDA claims that the Underdog 0.8 module shows 93% mission effectiveness based on the analysis of more than 1,000 combat reports.
NORDA Dynamics was founded in 2024. The company is developing the Underdog CORE ecosystem of autonomous solutions, which should provide drones with GNSS-free navigation, target recognition, autonomous approach to them, and on-board decision-making.
Palladyne AI is an American public company, trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol PDYN, that develops solutions for embodied AI and collective autonomy in military and industrial systems.
