Palladyne AI and NORDA Dynamics to Integrate SwarmOS™ Collaborative Autonomy Software with NORDA’s Combat-Proven Underdog Autonomy Module
Combined Solution Enables Aerial Platforms to Detect, Track and Engage Terrestrial and Maritime Targets, Pairing SwarmOS Edge-Based Perception, Collaboration, and Multi-Target Coordination with NORDA’s Combat-Proven Systems
SALT LAKE CITY & LVIV, Ukraine–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Palladyne AI (NASDAQ: PDYN), a U.S.-based defense and industrial technology company delivering embodied AI-powered collaborative autonomy solutions, and NORDA Dynamics (“NORDA”), a Ukrainian-Estonian developer of a drone autonomy ecosystem proven in active combat, today announced a collaboration to integrate Palladyne AI’s SwarmOS™ decentralized, collaborative autonomy platform with the Underdog Autonomy Module, NORDA’s autonomous terminal guidance product for next-generation unmanned swarm operations.
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NORDA’s Combat-Proven Underdog Autonomy Module (photo credit: NORDA Dynamics)
Founded in 2024, NORDA Dynamics is a Ukrainian-Estonian defense-tech company with its engineering and operations center in Lviv, Ukraine. NORDA builds its products on Underdog CORE, an AI brain that gives drones GNSS-denied navigation, target recognition, terminal guidance, and onboard decision-making, enabling them to complete missions without GPS, without communications, and amid active electronic warfare, across strike and interception roles. These systems are among the most widely deployed today in active combat zones: integrated with dozens of drone manufacturers in Ukraine and tested in tens of thousands of real-world engagements on one of the world’s most electronically contested battlefields. That record is what NORDA brings to the collaboration.
The two companies’ technologies are complementary, addressing different phases of the same mission. SwarmOS provides the swarm intelligence layer: distributed, edge-based perception and collaboration that lets multiple unmanned platforms autonomously detect, classify, assign, and maintain persistent tracking of multiple moving or stationary targets at once. Underdog takes over for the final phase – short-range precision pursuit and engagement of each assigned target, even when jamming has disrupted communications with the UAV. Each system is designed to operate independently within its own phase of the mission. When integrated together, SwarmOS’ persistent, multi-target tracking can feed real-time target state data directly into NORDA’s terminal guidance, enabling the combined system to autonomously find, fix, track, assign, pursue and guide capability against multiple simultaneous targets, with decentralized coordination and minimal operator workload. Throughout the mission, engagement decisions remain subject to human-on-the-loop oversight.
The collaboration pairs two complementary autonomy ecosystems: SwarmOS extends its platform-agnostic swarming architecture into autonomous terminal guidance for counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), while the NORDA Ecosystem gains a collaborative, multi-target coordination layer for its combat-proven autonomy products. Under the collaboration and subject to any necessary governmental approvals, the companies plan to integrate their technologies onto one or more unmanned platforms and jointly demonstrate the combined system.
The same framework extends to countering adversarial unmanned aerial systems, using coordinated multi-vehicle sensing, tracking and interception. Distributed decision-making and onboard artificial intelligence are designed to keep the integrated architecture resilient even when communications are degraded or denied.
The collaboration aligns with Department of War modernization priorities: a shift toward low-cost, distributed and attritable capabilities under the Department’s cost-per-effect mandate, expanding investment in counter-unmanned aerial systems, and treating collaborative autonomous swarming as a current operational requirement rather than a future concept.
Ben Wolff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Palladyne AI, said:
“NORDA has proven in combat, at scale, that terminal guidance can survive jamming and GPS denial, addressing one of the hardest problems in electronic warfare. SwarmOS turns that proven guidance into a collaborative force — a heterogeneous swarm that finds, tracks and assigns multiple targets at once, then hands each one off for terminal engagement, on its own, without constant communications or a single operator flying every asset. This is how you go from a single weapon that survives the fight to a swarm that wins it.”
Nazar Bigun, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NORDA Dynamics, said:
“We built the NORDA Ecosystem to solve autonomy across the whole mission — navigation when GPS is gone, recognition when communications are jammed, and terminal guidance when everything else has been taken away. Underdog is the sharpest edge of that ecosystem, proven across tens of thousands of real deployments. Palladyne AI’s SwarmOS has demonstrated that unmanned platforms can operate as a collaborative team without centralized control. Bringing our guidance into that architecture means each vehicle in the swarm reaches its assigned target, while the swarm as a whole adapts together. Proven precision plus proven collaboration — exactly what operators need next.”
About Palladyne AI
Palladyne AI is a U.S.-based technology company developing patented embodied artificial intelligence, collaborative autonomy solutions, and autonomous systems for defense and industrial markets. Palladyne AI delivers secure, American-developed and operated platforms designed to meet the stringent requirements of U.S. government and public-sector customers, including data sovereignty, security, and compliance.
Palladyne AI’s embodied AI is designed to operate in complex, contested, and high-risk environments, enabling distributed tasking, human-on-the-loop decision-making, degraded-communications resilience, and multi-domain coordination. Its platform-agnostic autonomy stack combines real-time sensor fusion, adaptive AI models, and edge-native orchestration to support autonomous and collaborative systems across air, ground, maritime, and industrial domains. For more information about Palladyne AI, including GuideTech and Palladyne Aerospace and Defense, please visit www.palladyneai.com.
About NORDA Dynamics
NORDA Dynamics is a Ukrainian-Estonian defense-tech company building an ecosystem of drone autonomy products on its Underdog CORE platform, a platform-agnostic AI brain giving every mission GNSS-denied navigation, terminal guidance, target recognition, and decision-making capabilities. Founded in 2024, with roots in volunteer work supporting Ukraine’s military dating back to 2014, NORDA is headquartered in Estonia, with its engineering and operations center in Lviv, Ukraine.
All of NORDA’s products are united within the NORDA Ecosystem: quadcopter and fixed-wing strike platforms, and a hexacopter payload platform for logistics and disaster-response missions. NORDA’s battlefield-proven technology is used by more than 200 units within Ukraine’s Defense Forces. The company’s latest terminal guidance update, Underdog 0.8, has achieved 93% mission effectiveness, based on the analysis of more than 1,000 combat mission reports. NORDA’s mission is to protect the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, deliver asymmetric advantage on the battlefield, and help defend Ukraine and its allies against military aggression. For more information, visit www.norda.tech.
This joint press release is issued by Palladyne AI Corp. and NORDA Dynamics. Each party is solely responsible for the content, data, statements, and information pertaining to its own products, technology, organization, and operations contained herein. Neither party makes any representation or warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, or validity of the information relating to the other party.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the expected benefits of the collaboration between Palladyne AI and NORDA Dynamics; planned integration and compatibility of the technologies; the capabilities of each company’s technologies and products; and the anticipated capabilities, performance and potential applications of the combined technologies. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Generally, statements that are not historical facts, including statements concerning possible or assumed future actions, business strategies, events, or results of operations, are forward-looking statements. These statements may be preceded by, followed by, or include the words “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “projects,” “forecasts,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “seeks,” “plans,” “scheduled,” “anticipates,” “intends” or “continues” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results, or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Palladyne AI management’s current expectations and beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events. However, there can be no assurance that the events, results, or trends identified in these forward-looking statements will occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Palladyne AI is not under any obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, to update, alter or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.
Readers should carefully review the statements set forth in the reports which Palladyne AI has filed or will file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), in particular the risks and uncertainties set forth in the sections of those reports entitled “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” for a description of risks facing Palladyne AI and that could cause actual events, results or performance to differ from those indicated in the forward-looking statements contained herein. The documents filed by Palladyne AI with the SEC may be obtained free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260824268423/en/
Palladyne AI Investor Contact:
Brian S. Siegel, IRC®, M.B.A.
Senior Managing Director
Hayden IR – Chicago
(346) 396-8696 (o)
[email protected]
[email protected]
Palladyne AI Press Contact:
Heath Meyer
(858) 768-1527
[email protected]
NORDA Dynamics Investor Contact:
[email protected]
NORDA Dynamics Press Contact:
[email protected]
KEYWORDS: Utah Europe United States Ukraine North America
INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Hardware Other Defense Aerospace Data Management Satellite Manufacturing Government Technology Technology Robotics Homeland Security Defense Public Policy/Government Artificial Intelligence Drones Military Software
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| NORDA’s Combat-Proven Underdog Autonomy Module (photo credit: NORDA Dynamics) |
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