SOFINS 2025: Asterodyn and HawAI.tech explore ‘bodyguard' UAVs for aircraft

Asterodyn UAVs on display at SOFINS 2025. Note the pusher/puller propeller configurations. (Janes/Amael Kotlarski)

French unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and command-and-control (C2) system companies Asterodyn and HawAI.tech presented their high-speed UAV solution for a variety of defence applications at the Special Operations Forces Innovation Network Seminar (SOFINS) 2025 defence exhibition held from 1 to 3 April in Gironde, France.

Displaying under the umbrella of Soflab, an incubator for small and innovative companies that are of interest to the special forces community, both companies presented their project with a few potential use cases in mind.

Originally founded in 2018, Asterodyn developed very-high-speed UAVs for filming extreme sports such as wingsuiting and aerial acrobatics displays. The company used four or eight motors (in pusher and pusher/puller configurations), with a range of payloads from 60 g up to 2 kg. Flown in first-person view (FPV) mode, the UAVs can reach top speeds of up to 400 km/h, with a range of up to 20 km.

Acceleration is significant; the company claims their UAVs can accelerate from 0 to 300 km/h in approximately 1.4 seconds. The UAVs have also been extensively tested and employed, launched from helicopters and slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft, such as a Cessna 208 Caravan.

In 2024 Asterodyn decided to explore potential defence applications and partnered up with HawAI.tech, a company specialising in mission planning software and artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms for autonomous UAV navigation in the land, air, and sea domains.

HawAI.tech has been developing computer vision-based algorithms to allow autonomous detection, identification, and recognition (DIR) capabilities, and once targets are manually designated (French doctrine requires a man-in-the-loop), the ability for the UAV to autonomously track and intercept its target.