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The Switzerland-based Auterion revealed its new revolutionary technology that allows drones to bypass electronic warfare countermeasures, like jamming. Called Skynode S, it allows fully autonomous flight to reach and destroy ground targets with significant accuracy.
The company calls the Skynode S an all-in-one computer and flight controller offering the first ever low-cost technology that is meant to integrate with a wide range of commercial and military vehicles. The system was proven in combat missions in Ukraine, where it offered Kyiv’s forces advanced computer vision to counter and bypass incidents of loss of GPS and radio frequency.
According to Interesting Engineering, this technology is the first to offer swarm control, fully autonomous flight, and immunity to jamming. It reportedly delivers unprecedented accuracy and has a success rate of over 90%.
Lorenz Meier, founder and CEO of Auterion, says about Skynode S: “Our technology is transforming the battlefield to help democracies defend themselves… We are proud to contribute to the Ukrainians’ effort with smarter, more accurate, and cost-effective technology that allows them to use drones at an increasingly massive scale to repel the aggressor.”
Due to its relatively low cost, Auterion’s software is “democratizing high-tech combat drones” and could enable US manufacturers and suppliers to outpace Chinese competitors. It also features a targeting app that is compatible with regular computers, which makes it a game-changer for both defense and commercial sectors.
With Skynode S, civilian operators can deploy small, low-cost drones in both restricted airspace or indoors, and integrate the full range of cameras, radios and onboard apps onto the platform. The drones can navigate accurately over long distances when GPS is degraded, jammed or unavailable.
According to Breaking Defense, the same circuit board that runs the target-tracking algorithm can also be linked to jamming-resistant GPS antennas, electromagnetic sensors that triangulate the drone’s position off radio beacons and computer vision algorithms that match the terrain below the drone against high-res satellite maps.
