Autonomous strike drone uses Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano to pick and bomb targets
2 hours ago
- Autonomous NATO strike drone uses Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano to independently select and attack targets, requiring no human input or external communications.
- Swedish startup Scaleout Systems demonstrated the drone under BAE Systems' ALMA program, where a loitering munition autonomously detected, ranked, and struck an armored vehicle.
- All AI processing is done onboard, with manual input optional, and the pilot acting only as a failsafe; the mission completed in under 320 seconds without communication.
- Scaleout uses 'federated learning' to train AI models locally and share updates, part of NATO's DIANA accelerator and FEDAIR project, receiving €100,000 in funding.
- An arctic test at -18°C used an Airolit S1 with YOLOv8 Nano on Nvidia's Jetson Orin Nano, achieving 30 fps and 30 ms latency, with ranging via pinhole camera model.
- A separate Swedish Air Force test simulated communication loss, with the drone maintaining inference and active learning while offline, then backfilling data on reconnect.
- These demonstrations occur before any official NATO procurement order or combat deployment; a UN expert group recommends human control to comply with laws of war.
- The technology shows autonomous target selection on accessible hardware, but whether BAE moves ALMA to procurement remains undecided.