Shield AI's V-BAT Proves Cold Weather Capabilities in NATO's Arena HEIMDALL Exercise

Shield AI, the deep-tech company building state-of-the-art autonomy software products and aircraft, demonstrated Arctic-ready, ship-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities during NATO’s HEIMDALL 26 exercise in Norway.  

Hosted by the NATO Center of Excellence for Cold Weather Operations (CEO-CWO) between February 17 and 26, HEIMDALL served as the validation of NATO’s Arctic experimentation arena, evaluating manned-unmanned teaming concepts and the integration of ISR data into the NATO Federated Mission Network and Multi Domain Operation (MDO) framework. The exercise served as an opportunity to validate V-BAT’s ability to operate in extreme cold and maritime conditions without aircraft modifications.  

“HEIMDALL was an excellent opportunity to prove V-BAT’s performance in real-world Arctic conditions. We launched from land and from smaller vessels, operated in harsh weather, and conducted surveillance across both maritime and land domains. V-BAT serves as a force multiplier in contested maritime environments by giving commanders reliable ISR wherever they operate. From the Caribbean to the high Arctic, V-BAT provides a dependable capability to support maritime and amphibious missions,” said Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s president and co-founder and former Navy SEAL. 

During the multinational exercise, V-BAT functioned as an integrated ISR node inside a NATO-aligned multi-domain architecture in Arctic conditions. V-BAT successfully completed multiple ship-based vertical launch and land (VTOL) operations from Norwegian Coast Guard vessel KV Olav Tryggvason as well as land-based VTOL missions, demonstrating operational capability in Arctic winter conditions without configuration changes. Both day and night operations were conducted, with missions performed using an array of sensor payloads, including electro-optic and infra-red sensor systems and synthetic aperture radar.  Communications between V-BATs and forces at sea and ashore were conducted over multiple frequency bands, with intelligence data generated by the V-BATs fed directly into multinational command-and-control systems to provide commanders with enhanced situational awareness of the area of operations. 

“Cold weather operations can present a range of challenges to unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operators, including icing, condensation, and extreme weather conditions such as cold temperatures and high winds. When moving into afloat maritime operations, these factors are significantly multiplied, making any flight operation more complex. Being able to work with customers such as the Norwegian Coast Guard and the Norwegian Armed Forces, who really know and understand cold weather operations, meant we were able to gain the best feedback on our platforms while utilizing a unique location.  

“HEIMDALL allowed us to validate all the capabilities of the V-BAT to a range of stakeholders, without having to make any additional modifications to the aircraft – demonstrating a truly off-the-shelf capability. This also highlighted how users can be truly expeditionary with the V-BAT, as it can be maintained as an organic support asset that can be deployed anywhere around the globe,” Chris Brinkley, senior director of business development and strategy for Europe & Africa, added. 

V-BAT is a NATO Class I small VTOL UAS with a ducted-fan design, more than 12 hours of endurance, and a heavy-fuel engine. Designed, tested, and deployed for the electronic warfare battlefield, V-BAT delivers ISR and targeting at significantly lower cost and logistical burden than larger NATO Class II and III drones. Its single-engine, enclosed-rotor design enables safe, unassisted launch and recovery from ship decks, urban rooftops, and austere environments.