Ukrainian startup integrates AI into drones for autonomous final approach

Ukraine’s defense sector has rapidly adopted artificial intelligence to address the technological gap with its adversary. This shift is moving from experimental concepts to active deployment on the front lines.

Yaroslav Azhnyuk, a 37-year-old computer scientist, leads The Fourth Law and Odd Systems. These companies are among the top producers of AI-powered drones in the country. Dozens of Ukrainian military units currently utilize their autonomous drone, the Lupynis-10-TFL-1.

Azhnyuk previously worked in Silicon Valley and founded Petcube, a company that sold one million AI-powered pet cameras in the United States. He pivoted to defense work after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. He described the transition as a move from cameras that fling treats to cameras that fling explosives.

The Lupynis-10-TFL-1 combines a standard first-person-view drone with an autonomous terminal guidance unit. The drone contains an onboard computer and AI technology that assumes control during the final 500 meters of a flight. Azhnyuk distinguishes this system from large language models or self-driving car software, describing it as using simple tools for image recognition and autonomous navigation.

The company named the drone after Anatoliy Lupynis, a 20th-century Ukrainian poet and political activist who spent decades in Soviet imprisonment. The firm names its weapons after Ukrainian intellectuals and artists who were killed or persecuted by Russians in the previous century. Azhnyuk stated that naming the weapons helps resurrect the memory of these figures.

A team from The Fourth Law tested the drone in an overgrown field outside Kyiv. A technician identified by the call sign Stab explained that the microcomputer runs on a deep-learning neural network trained on hours of combat footage. The system recognizes targets such as vehicles, light-armored vehicles, tanks, and flying objects.

During the test, a pilot identified by the call sign Professor guided the drone to a dilapidated car on a dirt road. A red flash on the monitor indicated the system had locked onto the target. Professor released the control stick, and the drone flew to the car autonomously. Stab noted that the drone performed all final maneuvers without human input.

Stab said AI drones are difficult to jam and that safeguards prevent them from going rogue. Humans select the initial target, but the system handles the final approach. Azhnyuk said his company’s drones are not killer robots but function as calculators. He acknowledged that future drones may make independent decisions on target designation, but he argued Ukraine must use AI defensively to match the speed of Russian systems. He stated that if Ukraine loses, there is no way to argue about the ethics of AI.