Draft V0, copy not yet validated. All figures come from simulation on open data, not from flight tests or operational data.
AITHREN FR

AITHREN Lodestone

Reconnaissance

Navigation and detection: exist (simulation)

Autonomy and navigation for small drones and robots, even without GNSS or a link: position held day and night, on-board detection, discretion.

A software brick for small UAVs and UGVs, built on low-cost sensors already on board. Delivered to platform makers and integrators.

GNSS is never trusted blindly: spoofing and jamming are detected rather than followed.

What exists today, in simulation

  • Position held within a few metres by day, without GNSS.
  • Position held within about ten metres at night.
  • Drift kept under control for the whole mission with the low-cost sensors already on board.
  • GNSS spoofing and jamming detected in seconds, position held through the attack.
  • Runs on board, needs no link; a PX4 autopilot already flies a mission on our position in simulation.
  • On-board detection of vehicles and people, day and night, in real time on an embedded computer (estimate). Evaluated on public imagery; still to be qualified in flight.
  • Lodestone supervision station on the digital twin: picture, navigation integrity, fleet and cargo, detections to review, two-person approvals, separated roles (operator, imagery analyst, commander, logistician).
Real output of the AITHREN detector on a public drone image: nine vehicles boxed with their confidence score
Real detector output on a public test image (“Aerial Vehicle Detection” dataset by small-object-detection, Roboflow Universe, CC BY 4.0). Public image · real output
Real output of the AITHREN thermal detector on a public night image: people and vehicles boxed with their score
Real night-thermal detector output on a public test image (HIT-UAV, Suo et al. 2023, CC0). Public image · real output

Roadmap

  • Air-to-air drone detection: spot, track and classify a drone from the drone, day and night.
  • Cross-checking detections between drones and confidence scoring: only important, high-confidence reports are sent.
  • Discretion: silent by default; the mission continues when the link is lost and observations come back without giving the drone away.
  • Interoperability: NATO STANAG interfaces towards ground stations and C2 (for example STANAG 4586, STANAG 4609, APP-6 symbology); MAVLink towards autopilots already exists.
  • Qualified Lodestone station v1, one operator for several drones.

Who it is for

  • Platform makers and integrators who want resilient navigation without changing sensors.
  • Units operating small drones and robots where GNSS and links are not guaranteed.

Dual uses

  • Search and rescue, civil protection: night thermal search for people, reconnaissance of disaster areas.
  • Inspection of infrastructure and sites where GNSS is unavailable or jammed: bridges, deep valleys, industrial sites.
  • Wildfire and wide-area monitoring with long-endurance drones.

Propose an evaluation