Russia field-testing new AI drone powered by Nvidia's Jetson Orin supercomputer

[midian182]

In a nutshell: There have been plenty of stories about the US using AI to create a new generation of autonomous weapons, but other countries are doing the same thing. One of these is Russia, which is said to be using a drone powered by Nvidia's Jetson Orin supercomputer.

Russia is using the self-piloting abilities of AI in its new MS001 drone that is currently being field-tested. Ukrainian Major General Vladyslav Klochkov wrote in a LinkedIn post that MS001 is able to see, analyze, decide, and strike without external commands. It also boasts thermal vision, real-time telemetry, and can operate as part of a swarm.

The drone's AI smarts come via a Jetson Orin, a $249 palm-sized generative AI supercomputer that the company revealed last December. It features 67 INT8 TOPS (trillion operations per second) and 102 GB/s memory bandwidth. At its core is an Nvidia Ampere architecture GPU with tensor cores, paired with a 6-core Arm CPU.

The MS001 doesn't need coordinates; it is able to take independent actions as if someone was controlling the UAV. The drone is able to identify targets, select the highest priorities, and adjust its trajectories. Even GPS jamming and target maneuvers can prove ineffective. "It is a digital predator," Klochkov warned.

In addition to the Jetson Orin, the remains of MS001 that was shot down last month revealed a thermal imager for night/low-visibility operations, Nasir GPS with CRPA antenna for spoof-proof navigation, FPGA chips for onboard adaptive logic, and a radio modem for telemetry and swarm communication.

The MS001 design is a variant of the Iranian-designed Shahed drones. A similar new Russian UAV, dubbed the V2U, was recently discovered to also be powered by the Jetson Orin, which was inserted into a Chinese-made Leetop A603 carrier board. That drone is described as a smart suicide attack unmanned aerial vehicle with artificial intelligence.

Since early 2022, the US has effectively banned advanced-chip exports to Russia and blacklisted hundreds of Russian buyers. Yet battlefield tear-downs still reveal team Green's technology: smugglers re-label it as consumer gadgets and forward small parcels through shell companies in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Turkey. US investigators estimate about $17 million in Nvidia hardware slipped through these grey-market routes in 2023 – evidence that diversion networks keep the chips flowing despite sanctions.

Update: Nvidia contacted TechSpot with an update on the story. A spokesperson said, "Our Jetson Orin modules are consumer-grade products sold to students, developers, and startups for a wide range of beneficial applications. They are not available in Russia and are not designed for military purposes. If we discover that any Jetson distributor is violating US export controls, we will cut off their supply"

AI drones are becoming an increasingly popular weapon in theaters of war. Palmer Luckey's Anduril Industries last year unveiled new AI-powered kamikaze drones. The technology is also being used to create autonomous jets, with the US Air Force successfully testing the dogfighting capabilities of these vehicles against human pilots.

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Russia field-testing new AI drone powered by Nvidia's Jetson Orin supercomputer

 

[Kirby1]

Don't take the bait.

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

It looks like the Jetson Origin boards are being put together in China. Is it really a surprise that some of them are being shipped north to Russia? The rise of China's manufacturing ability has massively reduced the effectiveness of sanctions issued by everyone else.

 

[SRB]

While these items are no doubt advanced and a threat, I'm not seeing how what is essentially a 6 core rasberry pi with beefed up ARM cores and an NPU slightly more powerful that the Ryzen AI cpu's make this the most intelligent, capable drones yet. I will say that it is currently the most powerful single board computer with an NPU that is extremely cheap, available in mass quantities, and probably NOT on the export list except for Russia, and that's because of the Ukraine trade sanctions, not the AI sanctions.

They could probably improve them by using RTX gpus to make them more effective, but when these are available for $249 in the US, I'd imagine these are priced just right as single use drone controllers.

And yes, sanctions are a sieve that can be circumvented. While you implied they are useless, is it the article's (or author's) position we should drop all sanctions on China as well as Russia?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

While these items are no doubt advanced and a threat, I'm not seeing how what is essentially a 6 core rasberry pi with beefed up ARM cores and an NPU slightly more powerful that the Ryzen AI cpu's make this the most intelligent, capable drones yet. I will say that it is currently the most powerful single board computer with an NPU that is extremely cheap, available in mass quantities, and probably NOT on the export list except for Russia, and that's because of the Ukraine trade sanctions, not the AI sanctions.

They could probably improve them by using RTX gpus to make them more effective, but when these are available for $249 in the US, I'd imagine these are priced just right as single use drone controllers.

And yes, sanctions are a sieve that can be circumvented. While you implied they are useless, is it the article's (or author's) position we should drop all sanctions on China as well as Russia?

Most aircraft are using very old technology. The F-22 raptor ran on an IBM mainframe that couldnt even run DOOM. The F-35 is using pentium IV era tech, it's capable of a whopping 75 gigaflops of computing power.

The MQ9 Reaper drone used by the US military is similarly old, with its first flight in 2001 its running on even slower hardware then the F-35.

Compared to that, the Orin board is a screaming beast of a computer. The slowest Jetson is the Nano, and that is 1040 GFLOP by comparison. Most are between 2-3 TFLOP, or 2-3000 GFLOP, and the fastest AGX is pushing over 5 TFLOP.

It looks like the Jetson Origin boards are being put together in China. Is it really a surprise that some of them are being shipped north to Russia? The rise of China's manufacturing ability has massively reduced the effectiveness of sanctions issued by everyone else.

No, its not really a surprise. A lot of people criticized the sanctions for this very reason, if you're not producing the hardware, and an ally isnt either, you're going to really struggle to contain the flow of hardware. It'd be like Russia banning the EU from purchasing American grain.

 

[techstrike]

Personally, this is so unacceptable... and I'm talking to NVidia.

From a games graphics cards company to a military company.

Shame on you NVidia, you are a bad company where money is your only concern.

 

[SRB]

Most aircraft are using very old technology. The F-22 raptor ran on an IBM mainframe that couldnt even run DOOM. The F-35 is using pentium IV era tech, it's capable of a whopping 75 gigaflops of computing power.

The MQ9 Reaper drone used by the US military is similarly old, with its first flight in 2001 its running on even slower hardware then the F-35.

Compared to that, the Orin board is a screaming beast of a computer. The slowest Jetson is the Nano, and that is 1040 GFLOP by comparison. Most are between 2-3 TFLOP, or 2-3000 GFLOP, and the fastest AGX is pushing over 5 TFLOP.

You're not going to find any bettter as far as planes and such anywhere else. Unlike drones, night vision, small arms, projects such as planes, ships, tanks, etc have extremely long development times, as well as stringent durability and security requirements. It's pretty much a guarntee that the electrionics and tech will be behind the times when they go into service. However, some of the weaponry and avionics do get upgrades when meaningful and practical.

It's pretty easy to change single use drones on the fly and as supplies allow. And, the short development times improve the situation greatly. The disadvantage the US has, is 200 people and congress have to sign off on anything before the troops can use it. And the companies charge accordingly for all of the red tape, man hours, and lobbyists it takes to get anything adopted.

The Russians and Ukrainians have no such restrictions.

 

[MasterAce]

Amazing technology can autonomously target hospitals, universities, kids playgrounds and random apartment buildings.

 

[AnilD]

Nothing like finding out your GPU is being used in a rogue AI death swarm instead of mining Ethereum or training a chatbot. Somewhere, a gamer is crying because their RTX preorder got outbid by a military proxy in Singapore.

 

[kinetix]

Well, the Lancet drones have been using Jetson boards since ever I think and the Lancet-3 model uses AI terminal tracking and targeting, partially under operator control. During target selection and approach, they do so by assisting the operator and taking into account communication latency, and their flight control system in this phase and the terminal phase has proven to be so robust when controlled by the computer that drones that have been damaged, even when lurching due to rough adjustments, still impact the target.

 

[kinetix]

Amazing technology can autonomously target hospitals, universities, kids playgrounds and random apartment buildings.

Of course, they spend tens of thousands or millions on targets with no military/economic/political value and bad PR. Some forget that downed/jammed/spoofed drones and missiles, or failed AD missiles, don't disappear into thin air. But, those are very useful in the media...

 

[kinetix]

Most aircraft are using very old technology. The F-22 raptor ran on an IBM mainframe that couldnt even run DOOM. The F-35 is using pentium IV era tech, it's capable of a whopping 75 gigaflops of computing power.
The MQ9 Reaper drone used by the US military is similarly old, with its first flight in 2001 its running on even slower hardware then the F-35.
Compared to that, the Orin board is a screaming beast of a computer. The slowest Jetson is the Nano, and that is 1040 GFLOP by comparison. Most are between 2-3 TFLOP, or 2-3000 GFLOP, and the fastest AGX is pushing over 5 TFLOP.
No, its not really a surprise. A lot of people criticized the sanctions for this very reason, if you're not producing the hardware, and an ally isnt either, you're going to really struggle to contain the flow of hardware. It'd be like Russia banning the EU from purchasing American grain.

Exactly. Many believe that the electronics in weapons systems are state-of-the-art technology. Not at all. They're old technology, old architectures, but very well-tested, certified, and well-known. In addition to being manufactured with equally old technologies, but with the same requirements.. Space electronics has even stricter requirements. The JWST computers, the non-plus-ultra space telescope, are PowerPC 750s from the late 1990s, manufactured in 2001.
Most people are even unaware that the most important chips, perhaps in all industries, are the poor and underrated microcontrollers, and maybe some programmable logic, like FPGAs.

 

[p51d007]

Kind of reminds me of the 1984 Tom Selleck movie "Runaway" where the bad guy programmed a "bullet" that could target a person. Use "AI" to program a drone to attack an individual or specific vehicle.

 

[MasterAce]

Of course, they spend tens of thousands or millions on targets with no military/economic/political value and bad PR. Some forget that downed/jammed/spoofed drones and missiles, or failed AD missiles, don't disappear into thin air. But, those are very useful in the media...

Exactly what they do. Their FPV operators hunt civilians like it was a human safari. All the crimes commited by their soldiers leave no doubt what their strategy is. Terrorism by a terrorist state.

 

[Rudyduu]

Personally, this is so unacceptable... and I'm talking to NVidia.

From a games graphics cards company to a military company.

Shame on you NVidia, you are a bad company where money is your only concern.

It's illegal for NVIDIA to sell hardware to Russia so they wouldn't knowingly sell to them or companies they knew were selling to Russia, so you are shaming no one. Secondly Sanctions only work when new shell companies are also sanctioned. The new administration hasn't sanctioned any new companies since they came into office while the previous administration was sanctioning new companies constantly.

 

[Rudyduu]

Exactly. Many believe that the electronics in weapons systems are state-of-the-art technology. Not at all. They're old technology, old architectures, but very well-tested, certified, and well-known. In addition to being manufactured with equally old technologies, but with the same requirements.. Space electronics has even stricter requirements. The JWST computers, the non-plus-ultra space telescope, are PowerPC 750s from the late 1990s, manufactured in 2001.
Most people are even unaware that the most important chips, perhaps in all industries, are the poor and underrated microcontrollers, and maybe some programmable logic, like FPGAs.

There is a lot more to military hardware and technology than just the semiconductors used. These types of devices have to be able to survive environmental extremes, need to be stable/reliable and need to have a solid trusted supply chain among other things. You can have old tech with modern software as well.

 

[Tantor]

Exactly what they do. Their FPV operators hunt civilians like it was a human safari. All the crimes commited by their soldiers leave no doubt what their strategy is. Terrorism by a terrorist state.

You're utterly delusional. Russians FPVs don't hunt civilians. They are used against Ukrainian military. Same for Ukrainian FPVs, they don't hunt Russian civilians.

Look at the recent Russian drone strikes in Kiev. The civilian death toll is remarkably low. They are hitting military buildings.

 

[Tantor]

Exactly. Many believe that the electronics in weapons systems are state-of-the-art technology. Not at all. They're old technology, old architectures, but very well-tested, certified, and well-known. In addition to being manufactured with equally old technologies, but with the same requirements.. Space electronics has even stricter requirements. The JWST computers, the non-plus-ultra space telescope, are PowerPC 750s from the late 1990s, manufactured in 2001.
Most people are even unaware that the most important chips, perhaps in all industries, are the poor and underrated microcontrollers, and maybe some programmable logic, like FPGAs.

True. Automobile CPUs are a good example. They are built to be robust, not complicated.

 

[Tantor]

This reminds me of the old saying - The accusation is the confession.

You can be sure that Western military laboratories are incorporating the latest tech into their loitering drones. Accusing Russians is the pot calling the kettle black.

 

[Tantor]

Amazing technology can autonomously target hospitals, universities, kids playgrounds and random apartment buildings.

True. Israel does that in Gaza. And in Iran. And the West Bank. And Lebanon. And Syria.

 

[MasterAce]

This reminds me of the old saying - The accusation is the confession.

You can be sure that Western military laboratories are incorporating the latest tech into their loitering drones. Accusing Russians is the pot calling the kettle black.

I fully support all war crimes investigated and tried.

 

[OortCloud]

Russia is such a broken state.
Can't even invade a poor neighbour so has to resort to nihilistic throwing drones over the border built in other broken states like North Korea and Iran.
Putin is an embarrassment.