The first open, EU-native operating system for secure autonomous drone swarms.
VectraSwarm OS (VSO) is a hardware-agnostic, open-source operating system for coordinated autonomous drone swarms — built for security, resilience, and edge-AI inference without cloud dependency.
Think of it as Android for drone swarms: a standardized platform that runs on any drone hardware, with a secure swarm coordination layer on top.
- Zero-Trust Security — MAVLink v2 + MAVSEC (HMAC-SHA256), WireGuard, TEE/StrongBox
- Decentralized Mesh — WiFi Aware NAN, no ground station required
- Byzantine Fault Tolerant — swarm stays operational with up to 33% node failure
- Hardware-Agnostic — HAL abstraction (~200 lines C++) runs on any drone hardware
- Edge AI — on-device inference via ONNX/TensorRT/Hailo-8L, no cloud
- EU-Native — SORA/SAIL compliant, EU AI Act ready
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ VSO Application Layer │
│ (Fleet Registry, Mission Logic) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Edge AI Layer │
│ (YOLOv8-Nano, ONNX, Hailo-8L) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Security Core (Rust) │
│ (MAVSEC, WireGuard, BFT Consensus) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Android AOSP + PREEMPT-RT │
│ (Companion Computer) │
├──────────────┬──────────────────────────┤
│ VSO HAL │ PX4 Flight Controller │
│ (~200 C++) │ (STM32, MAVLink v2) │
└──────────────┴──────────────────────────┘
Any Drone Hardware
vso-core/
├── security-core/ # Rust: MAVSEC, BFT consensus, WireGuard integration
├── hal/ # C++: Hardware Abstraction Layer for OEM drone hardware
├── mesh/ # WiFi Aware NAN mesh, peer discovery
├── edge-ai/ # ONNX inference pipeline, Hailo-8L integration
├── docs/ # Architecture docs, API specs, safety documentation
└── scripts/ # Setup, build, and test scripts
| Component | Test Environment | Result |
|---|---|---|
| MAVSEC signing | STM32F7, n=1,000 packets | 0.8 ms overhead |
| WireGuard tunnel | Two Linux hosts | RTT 1.4 ms |
| Android TEE/StrongBox | Pixel 7 | Key generation confirmed |
| 2-drone mesh | Android + PX4/STM32 | P2P connectivity established |
# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/vectraswarm/vso-core.git
cd vso-core
# PX4 SITL (software simulation — no hardware needed)
git clone https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot --recursive
cd PX4-Autopilot && make px4_sitl gazebocd security-core
cargo build
cargo test| Phase | Milestone | Status |
|---|---|---|
| PoC Month 1–2 | Security stack on COTS hardware | 🔄 In progress |
| PoC Month 3–4 | 3-node BFT mesh, WiFi Aware NAN | ⬜ Planned |
| PoC Month 5–6 | Edge AI integration (YOLOv8 + Hailo) | ⬜ Planned |
| Phase 2 | 20-drone field test, SORA certification | ⬜ Planned |
VSO is built under the EXIST-Forschungstransfer program in collaboration with the Institut für Flugmechanik und Flugregelung (IFR), Universität Stuttgart (Prof. Dr. Aamir Ahmad).
We are currently forming the founding team. If you are interested in contributing or joining:
VSO Core is released under the Apache License 2.0 — free to use, modify, and distribute. Enterprise components (Fleet Registry, KMS, audit tools) are proprietary.
See LICENSE for details.
VectraSwarm — The Android of Drone Swarms