Shield AI

Shield AI is a company building AI systems like drones for use by military service members and first responders. The software Shield AI has developed allows unmanned systems to operate in GPS and communications-denied environments. Shield AI was founded in 2015 by Ryan Tseng, Brandon Tseng and Andrew Reiter. The company works with Department of Defense entities like the Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command as well as private contractors like L3 Harris and Textron Systems.

The Hivemind framework enables individuals and teams of unmanned systems to learn from their experiences in the real world or from simulated experiences. Hivemind enables robots to autonomously access and explore GPS-denied areas, learn from their experiences, and help unmanned missions. The first application of Hivemind is Shield AI’s autonomous quadrotor, Nova.

Nova enables fully autonomous access and exploration of buildings, dense urban environments and GPS-absent areas to help mission outcomes and to reduce risk to operators. Nova is a hand-launchable, AI-powered aerial robot capable of both autonomous indoor and outdoor ISR operations. Nova streams video and map to operators in real-time and has an AI-assisted, novice-friendly flight mode. Nova automatically transitions to infrared in darkness, and can be commanded via the Shield AI mobile app.