Warfare today is increasingly defined by systems that can operate on the edge. Interest in autonomy for unmanned systems continues to grow, particularly for capabilities such as GPS- and comms-denied operations, autonomous mission execution, and teaming across platforms.  

While the case for autonomy is clear, committing to a larger autonomy effort upfront can still feel high-risk. Before deploying autonomy in the field, customers need proof that autonomy will work reliably on their own system under real-world conditions.  

Through years of integrating Hivemind with third-party unmanned systems, we have learned that customers often want a faster, lower-risk way to evaluate the operational impact of autonomy before making a larger investment in autonomous capabilities. 

With this in mind, we recently launched the Hivemind Catalyst Trial Program to give customers the confidence to develop and integrate autonomy on their own systems. This program provides a structured, time-bound path to integrate Hivemind, validate performance against operational objectives, and demonstrate autonomy in flight before committing to a larger autonomy effort. 

How the Catalyst Trial Program Accelerates Autonomy Adoption 

The Catalyst Trial Program is a three-month, hands-on integration and flight demonstration designed to rapidly integrate Hivemind onto customer unmanned systems and demonstrate autonomy in real-world conditions. Customers bring an unmanned system, a small engineering team, and a mission objective they want to achieve. Shield AI provides the Hivemind autonomy stack, integration tooling, and embedded engineering support needed to move from concept to flight on an accelerated timeline. 

Each engagement begins with the mission. Customer teams work with an embedded Shield AI engineer and customer success manager to define mission objectives, operational requirements, and the autonomous capabilities required for the mission. From there, Hivemind is integrated onto the unmanned system as teams move through software-in-the-loop testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, vehicle testing, and ultimately flight demonstration.  

The program builds on more than a decade of autonomy development with Hivemind. To date, Shield AI has deployed Hivemind across 30 unmanned systems, including systems conducting operational missions in Ukraine. The Catalyst Trial Program gives customers hands-on experience operating autonomy on their own platforms, helping them build the expertise needed to scale over time. 

How Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Republic of Singapore Air Force Accelerated Autonomy with Hivemind 

This approach is grounded in real deployment experience across multiple customer autonomy programs. In our partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), the team progressed from initial training to flight in just 60 days. After the first flight, the team continued refining capabilities and executing mission scenarios during live testing, adapting to communications and platform constraints throughout the process. Within 90 days, two test aircraft autonomously demonstrated coordinated motions while tracking a virtual air vehicle, showcasing how quickly autonomous capabilities can move from integration to live flight testing.  

In another partnership, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and Singapore’s Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) used Hivemind to rapidly develop and demonstrate autonomy on the Ascent SPIRIT platform. Hivemind enabled a search and rescue demonstration across multiple flight zones separated by restricted airspace. This effort accelerates future autonomous capabilities, including manned-unmanned teaming and coordinated multi-aircraft operations for RSAF and DSTA, while advancing sovereign autonomy.

Build Your Confidence Before Scaling Autonomy 

Throughout the program, customer teams gain direct experience integrating, operating, and evaluating autonomy on their own unmanned systems. By the time flight demonstrations occur, autonomy is no longer theoretical. Hivemind is operating against your mission requirements, on your platform, and alongside your operators. 

Customers leave the program with a clearer understanding of how autonomy can scale across future mission sets and unmanned system portfolios, with Shield AI ready to support the next phase of development, integration, and deployment. 

Interested in the Hivemind Catalyst Trial Program? Contact us today.

Inderraj Singh Grewal is Senior Director of Hivemind Engineering & Global Customer Success at Shield AI, where he leads efforts to deliver autonomy capabilities to defense customers around the world. He works across engineering, customer success, and mission operations to accelerate the deployment of Hivemind autonomy solutions for next-generation autonomous systems operating in contested environments.