The Pentagon has awarded a $50 million contract to multinational defense software firm Auterion to deliver 33,000 AI-powered “strike kits” to Ukraine.
The kits convert commercial drones into autonomous weapons and are expected to ship by the end of the year. “The strike kits are platform-agnostic, so that they can be used with any drone type,” an Auterion spokesperson told Decrypt.
It comes two months after Ukraine launched a large-scale attack against Russian targets using commercial drones. “You’re seeing a cat-and-mouse game, with each side trying to innovate in real time,” Daniel Gerstein, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation and former acting Undersecretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security, told Decrypt. “One side is developing drones that can strike from long distances. The other is building countermeasures.”
Gerstein said that drone warfare has reshaped modern combat, even as it enters a new tactical phase—using AI-guided drones in contested zones. Drones that AI navigates do not rely on remote operators, which can be an advantage if the operator’s radio signal is being jammed.
With this technology, the attacker could “use AI to identify a target—put it into a general vicinity,” he said. “Then, once it gets there, identify the target, strike the target, and accomplish the mission.”
In June, Ukraine used modified commercial drone swarms to hit military targets deep inside Russia, demonstrating the growing threat of these autonomous and increasingly lower-cost drones. “In Operation Spider’s Web, they positioned trucks near the airfield and launched drones. According to reports, they used ‘First Person View,’ meaning operators manually targeted individual aircraft,” Gerstein said.
“But with AI, drones could be programmed to seek out specific systems—like air defense radars, armored vehicles, or command centers, by homing in on radio signals those targets emit,” Gerstein added.
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in both Munich and Arlington, Virginia, Auterion develops software and operating systems for autonomous drones and ground robots. Its strike kits include the company’s Skynode module, a device about the size of a credit card, that allows drones to track and engage moving targets from up to a mile away. The company claims the tech is resistant to electronic jamming.
The Skynode S also features 4GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage, enabling drones to handle real-time video processing while operating remotely. Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to correct the location of Auterion’s headquarters. The company was previously located in Zurich but relocated to Munich. The founding year was also corrected.