A new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone from Massachusetts-based Tycho.AI combines high-speed flight with an AI-powered autonomy stack designed to navigate complex environments without relying on GPS.
Called Halley, the drone can exceed 200 miles (320 kilometers) per hour, travel up to 40 kilometers (25 miles), and fly as high as 7.6 meters (25 feet) above the ground.
It is built for rapid deployment, transitioning from storage to flight in less than 30 seconds through a zero-tool assembly design.
The compact platform supports a range of missions, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, one-way attack operations, and counter-drone swarming.
Operators can fly the drone through a first-person-view interface or deploy it as a fully autonomous system in GPS-denied environments.
Designed around a modular architecture, Halley is compatible with additive manufacturing and follows the Modular Open Systems Approach, enabling faster repairs and flexible payload integration in the field.
Having completed flight testing in a variety of conditions, the drone is now moving from prototype development toward full-rate production.
Next-Gen Navigation
At the core of the platform is Voyager, Tycho.AI’s autonomy stack that integrates vision, navigation, and flight control into a compact package.
The system combines visual-inertial odometry with satellite-image matching to navigate without depending on Global Navigation Satellite System signals.
It also employs foundation visual models for real-time situational awareness, supporting obstacle detection, avoidance, and 3D mapping.
Voyager further enables agile trajectory generation, which allows the drone to perform controlled maneuvers at high speeds and low altitudes.
“Halley isn’t just a new capability; it represents a strategic shift to an entirely new category of small, fast, agile UAS,” said Sertac Karaman, founder of Tycho.AI.
“Coupled with Tycho’s autonomous intelligence hardware and software, Halley allows our forces to penetrate in degraded, denied, and contested environments with a high-speed, highly-agile platform that remains effective when traditional assets are neutralized.”
