Ukrainian Major General Vladyslav (Владислав Клочков) Klochkov says Russia is field-testing a deadly new drone that can use AI and thermal vision to think on its own, identifying targets without coordinates and bypassing most air defense systems. According to the senior military figure, inside you will find the Nvidia Jetson Orin, which has enabled the MS001 to become “an autonomous combat platform that sees, analyzes, decides, and strikes without external commands.”
Digital predator dynamically weighs targets
With the Jetson Orin as its brain, the upgraded MS001 drone doesn’t just follow prescribed coordinates, like some hyper-accurate doodle bug. It actually thinks. “It identifies targets, selects the highest-value one, adjusts its trajectory, and adapts to changes — even in the face of GPS jamming or target maneuvers,” says Klochkov. “This is not a loitering munition. It is a digital predator.”
Even worse, the MS001 is allegedly operating in coordinated drone groups, persisting in its maximum destructive purpose despite the best efforts of Ukraine’s electronic warfare and other anti-drone systems.
Frustrated with warfare tech development speeds
Klochkov signs off his post by informing his LinkedIn followers that “We are not only fighting Russia. We are fighting inertia.” What he appears to wish for is an acceleration of Ukraine’s own assault drone capabilities. The Major General seems particularly disappointed in the Ukrainian system of procurement rounds, slowing field-testing and deployment of improved responses to new Shahed drone generations.
Shahed drones are originally an Iranian design but have gained great notoriety due to their sustained use by the Russian army to attack Ukrainian targets. The MS001 is substantially upgraded in the ‘smarts’ department thanks to Western/allies technologies.
Klochkov says the MS001 is powered by the following key technologies:
- Nvidia Jetson Orin — machine learning, video processing, object recognition
- Thermal imager — operates at night and in low visibility
- Nasir GPS with CRPA antenna — spoof-resistant navigation
- FPGA chips — onboard adaptive logic
- Radio modem — for telemetry and swarm communication
Western tech sanctions are supposed to neuter this kind of military threat from nations like Russia and Iran. This news indicates that such trade barriers are leaky, at best, and probably not taken seriously enough.
Not the first Russia-deployed drone discovered using Nvidia AI
This isn’t the first Russian drone system that is thought to have adopted Nvidia’s Jetson Orin as a key component.
A month ago, Ukraine’s Defense Express site said that a new “smart suicide attack unmanned aerial vehicle with artificial intelligence,” dubbed the V2U, was powered by Nvidia’s little AI computer.
While the Shahed MS001s use an Iranian design, the V2U looks like it is more reliant on Chinese tech, including the Chinese-made Leetop A603 carrier board.
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