Minerva

About Minerva

Minerva builds modular 3D printed UAS and edge AI vision systems for contested environments. Our drones are fully field repairable, NDAA compliant, and reconfigurable within minutes using a twist lock modular design. Operators can swap wings, propulsion, and payloads in the field without depot support. Minerva Vision, our edge AI platform, provides real time object and drone detection without GPUs, cloud, or GPS, transmitting only lightweight metadata and snapshots to Palantir for analysis. This combination of hardware and software addresses DoD challenges where autonomy, secure supply chains, and rapid adaptability are mission critical. Beyond defense, the same edge vision capabilities apply to manufacturing, logistics, retail analytics, and safety compliance, with a long term roadmap toward autonomous drones and robotics powered purely by vision.

Tagged with

Artificial Intelligence3D PrintingAutonomous Vehicles (AVs)Edge ComputingComputer Vision & Image ProcessingDefense & Military

Team

Nickolas Hughes

Founder

Problem statement

Current fixed wing UAS are fragile, logistics heavy, and vendor locked. Most autonomy tools require GPS or cloud connectivity, which fails in contested or disconnected environments. High bandwidth video streaming is unrealistic for missions, and supply chain reliance creates risk.

Traction information

We have built modular 3D printed UAS prototypes featuring twist lock airframes and hot swappable payloads. We have demonstrated the Minerva Vision prototype, which runs detections locally and syncs metadata and snapshots directly into Foundry. Our hardware is already in use in the field, including mounts and IR detectors that have supported operators in Ukraine. We are also actively engaging DoD and SOF stakeholders who have expressed early interest in ISR, autonomy, and counter UAS applications.

Updates

Profile created.

Added 1 day ago