Ask anyone in defense tech, and they’ll all agree that drones are great. The only issue is that there are too many different types of them to make them work together. Well, Auterion might have the solution. On Wednesday, German-American autonomy startup Auterion launched Nemyx, a new swarm strike software that allows different drone models to be controlled as a single, coordinated unit. Looks like drone swarming is quickly becoming a real thing.
Big moves: Auterion has been on a heater recently. Back in July, the company won a $50M Pentagon contract to send 33,000 AI-powered drone guidance “strike kits” to Ukraine by the end of the year. Now, it looks like Nemyx will give those drones a fancy new upgrade to make them even more effective in coordinated strikes and ISR missions in contested environments.
Nemyx slots on top of Auterion’s existing autonomy stack, which includes their onboard operating system AuterionOS and autopilot and mission computer hardware Skynode S. According to the company, Nemyx “transforms drones from isolated tools into a connected, battle-ready system,” combining AI-guided targeting, autonomous multi-target engagement, and drone-to-drone communication.
Here’s how it works:
- Nemyx runs on Auterion’s AuterionOS autopilot platform, a hardened version of the open-source PX4 autopilot platform designed to adapt across various drone types and missions.
- It’s fully integrated with their Skynode S hardware, which combines the flight controller, onboard mission computer, AI processing, and LTE connectivity into a single unit.
- Auterion’s open-source systems are designed for easy integration, enabling manual drones made by different companies to become semi-autonomous and GPS-resilient.
“By combining real-time AI, computer vision, and Skynode S-equipped drones, we’ve created a solution that rapidly identifies, prioritizes, and neutralizes multiple threats,” Auterion co-founder and CEO Lorenz Meier said. “Soldiers can deploy swarms that operate as a single force—whether from a rucksack or a truckload.”
One question mark: Before you get too excited, Nemyx may not be entirely new, and, based on Auterion’s description, could be the product of the company’s strategic partnership in June with Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST).
Auterion and NCSIST, Taiwan’s main defense tech R&D institution, signed an MoU to develop a roadmap for developing and deploying an autonomous AI-powered drone swarming platform called Nemesis on “hundreds of thousands of autonomous drones in the coming years.”
Regardless of whether Nemyx is a totally new offering or an upgraded, integrated, and productized version of Nemesis, Auterion’s delivery of 50,000 autonomous drone strike kits to Ukraine and 25,000 to Taiwanese drone-maker Thunder Tiger will give them plenty of chances to prove their swarming tech in the most drone-dominated frontline countries.
Buckle up, because, as Meier wrote, “The network era of drones has begun.”