US-Norwegian startup Heaviside launches Tyr loitering munition

Heaviside, a US-Norwegian defense startup, has launched Tyr, a loitering munition, meaning a drone that can fly to an area and strike a target. It is named after a Norse god. The company's headquarters and most of its staff are in Los Angeles, but most of the engineering, development and testing is done in Norway, according to Heaviside president Nils Haagenrud, who spoke in an interview.

Tyr includes some of the AI targeting features now being field tested in Ukraine. Haagenrud said the drone uses video navigation and fuses data from electro-optical and infrared sensors. In practice, the drone can fly itself to a strike zone designated by a human, then hunt on its own for recognizable targets such as a tank.

Once it finds a target, it does not attack on its own. It asks the operator for permission, and the human makes the final call. The company says it is scrupulous about keeping a human in the loop for that decision.

The excerpt available here is brief and gives no details on range, payload, price, customers or production plans for Tyr.

The design matters because it combines autonomous navigation and target search with a required human decision before any strike. That is the line the company draws on AI in weapons, as such features spread from Ukraine's battlefield testing into products built by firms with operations in Norway.