Ornadyne: We're building robot birds for surveillance.

We're building robot birds for surveillance.

Ornadyne builds flapping-wing drones for reconnaissance that look, fly, and sound like birds. Today’s drones are easy to detect acoustically, visually, and electronically. As counter-UAS systems improve, traditional quadcopters and fixed-wing UAS systems are becoming increasingly ineffective for close-range surveillance. Flapping-wing aircraft have existed for years, but have lacked the performance, endurance, and control required for real-world deployment. We’re changing that by engineering a high-performance, stealth-optimized system built from first principles for efficiency, autonomy, and reliable field use. The final frontier of surveillance won’t look like machines; it will look like wildlife already in the sky. Maybe birds aren't real?

Active Founders

Geourg Kivijian

Co-founder & CEO

Co-founder & CEO of Ornadyne. Award-winning engineer (IEEE/AIAA) recognized for pioneering work in flapping-wing robotics. Previously led coordination systems for Mars Sample Return at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lunar rovers at Astrolab. Now scaling Ornadyne to bring bio-inspired stealth and efficiency to the next generation of flight. www.geourgkivijian.com

Geourg Kivijian

Co-founder & CEO

Co-founder & CEO of Ornadyne. Award-winning engineer (IEEE/AIAA) recognized for pioneering work in flapping-wing robotics. Previously led coordination systems for Mars Sample Return at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lunar rovers at Astrolab. Now scaling Ornadyne to bring bio-inspired stealth and efficiency to the next generation of flight. www.geourgkivijian.com

Armen Arakelyan

Co-founder & CTO

Co-founder & CTO at Ornadyne, building autonomous flapping-wing aircraft. Previously a Starship components engineer at SpaceX. Before that, I led machining at USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at the University of Southern California, helping the team set the amateur rocketry altitude world record at 144 km.

Armen Arakelyan

Co-founder & CTO

Co-founder & CTO at Ornadyne, building autonomous flapping-wing aircraft. Previously a Starship components engineer at SpaceX. Before that, I led machining at USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at the University of Southern California, helping the team set the amateur rocketry altitude world record at 144 km.

Company Launches

Ornadyne - Robot Birds for Reconnaissance

See original launch post

TL;DR: Ornadyne is building robot birds for surveillance: drones with cameras for the military that look, fly, and sound like real birds🦅

The Problem(s):

Traditional drones have two main problems:

Propellers are loud
They don’t blend in; they’re visually obvious

This makes traditional fixed-wing and quadcopter drones extremely detectable, and inadvertently easy to shoot down and run away from.

https://youtu.be/ByrhebaiNGw

This isn’t new. The U.S. used to lead flapping-wing flight, but today, Europe and China are far ahead. Ornadyne is bringing the U.S. back into the lead.

We're building autonomous ornithopters with hour-class flight times, low acoustic signatures, and natural bird-like flight. This makes Ornadyne's drones harder for humans and counter-UAS systems to detect, classify, and target.

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The Founders:

Geourg’s Master's thesis is built on 2+ years of research and development in flapping-wing drones. His work has received multiple awards through AIAA and IEEE conference publications. He is ex- NASA JPL, and ex-Astrolab, where he worked on Mars and lunar missions.

Armen engineered Starship components at SpaceX and previously led machining at USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, helping the team set the amateur rocketry altitude world record at 144 km.

Both founders have been best friends since middle school.

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Ask:

If you work in defense tech or are building in the space, we’d love to connect. Introductions to anyone who might be interested in working with us would be much appreciated.