The Mission

VISTA Systems (Visual Intelligence, Surveillance, and Tactical Assistance): VISTA is a smart LIDAR & Thermal drone swarm that scans a target area and uses machine learning to provide an annotated 3D map for accurate and accelerated decision making. From disaster relief, defense, facility security, and police applications, VISTA empowers European and allied operators with real-time situational awareness for smarter and safer responses. VISTA delivers a comprehensive decision support system that enables real-time accurate threat detection that significantly reduces collateral damage and the operational risks faced by aid-workers and soldiers. VISTA provides actionable intelligence that ensures force protection and operational superiority while minimizing the loss of life. The system identifies and classifies civilians, combatants, vehicles, emplacements, POI's, terrain, and other variables without the need for personnel to make direct confrontation. Through automation and advanced data fusion, VISTA empowers humanitarians and warfighters to make informed, timely decisions in ever more complex and dynamic operational environments.

The Challenge

Basis In environments such as disaster zones, urban conflicts, secure facilities, and high-stakes police operations, teams are often forced to make critical decisions with incomplete or outdated information. The complexity of such settings includes dense structures, dynamic human activity, and obscured sightlines; maintaining situational awareness in these conditions is both essential and incredibly difficult. Traditional data collection methods are hampered by siloed systems, fragmented sensor inputs, and the need for slow, manual interpretation. Contemporary tools such as, FPV drones, UAVs and satellite imagery offer many advantages, however, they rarely deliver a persistent comprehensive understanding of complex environments. Teams need more than raw imagery; they require layered, persistent, machine-readable intelligence that enables them to see, analyze, and revisit spaces as conditions evolve. The lack of real-time situational awareness puts lives, assets, and mission objectives at unnecessary risk. Limitation of Basic Video Drones: Losing Visual Intelligence Human driven drones provide live, operator-controlled footage enabling immediate decision making on the ground. However, when scaled beyond small teams, managing, processing, and storing large amounts of drone data becomes difficult. Human operators are prone to errors and require substantial training. Additionally, once a drone leaves an area, the captured visual data is effectively lost: unless manually reviewed, a process too slow and inefficient for fast-paced operations. Why should visual information be lost just because the camera is no longer pointed at that location? Why must operators analyze live footage unaided by modern detection tools? Instead, they should have the ability to quickly recall and interrogate previously captured data. Limitation of Satellites: Circumstances Satellite imagery is a powerful asset but is limited by factors that reduce its suitability for frontline use. Typically deployed at the brigade level or higher in defense scenarios, satellites do not provide real-time, direct intelligence access to small teams in the field. In rapidly evolving environments such as urban combat, search-and-rescue, and counterterror operations, seconds count, and waiting through lengthy command chains is a risk frontline operators cannot afford. Additionally, most satellite systems are designed for strategic intelligence rather than tactical maneuvering. Their resolution, refresh rate, and field of view are insufficient for tracking individual movements or detecting detailed changes in complex environments. As a result, satellite data is often too slow and too removed to meet the immediate needs of teams on the ground.

The solution

Addressing the issues presented above, VISTA solves the problem of delayed, incomplete, and fragmented situational awareness in complex environments through a smart distributed drone swarm equipped with LIDAR and thermal imaging sensors to autonomously scan target areas and generate annotated, 3D maps in real time. By applying advanced machine learning, VISTA transforms raw spatial and thermal data into layered actionable intelligence: enabling frontline teams to see, analyze, and act faster and more accurately. Developed to overcome the limitations of traditional drones and satellite systems, VISTA delivers persistent situational awareness directly to frontline teams. It bridges the gap between strategic oversight and tactical necessity, empowering users in combat zones, disaster sites, secure compounds, and urban environments with a high-resolution nuanced understanding of their surroundings. By fusing thermal, spatial, and visual data into a unified operational layer, VISTA functions as a comprehensive decision support platform. VISTA automatically detects and classifies civilians, combatants, vehicles, terrain, emplacements, and points of interest, minimizing the need for direct confrontation and reducing operational ambiguity. Whether deployed in the defense, disaster response, law enforcement, or facility security sectors, VISTA enhances mission execution, reduces collateral damage, and ensures both force protection and humanitarian success. By delivering timely, localized, nuanced, and persistent intelligence, VISTA empowers European and allied responders to maintain operational superiority while minimizing waste. The Goal: BIRDS-AI (Borderless/Battlefield Intelligence & Reconnaissance Drone System) delivers persistent situational awareness through a semi-autonomous drone swarm that scans and maps environments in real time. The goal is to support tactical security and humanitarian operations by overcoming the limitations of traditional intelligence gathering and processing.