Topic · Writing
Defense & Autonomous Systems.
Autonomous systems and defense technology — drone-in-a-box infrastructure, counter-UAS, and what it takes to build hardware-plus-AI in Europe. Lessons from founding and scaling Dronehub.
10 posts
015 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026Dual-Use Is Not Weapons: Where the Line Sits in Autonomous Drones
Autonomous drones that monitor power grids are dual-use in regulatory terms but not weapons. The line between infrastructure defense and weaponization is precise, legally enforceable, and depends on intent and design—not hardware alone.
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027 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026Building Defense Tech as a Foreign-Born Founder: A Transparency Playbook
Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) compliance is a standard mitigation toolkit for US defense contracting—and for foreign founders, transparency beats obfuscation.
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038 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026A Decade of EU Deep-Tech R&D: What ESA, EDA, and Dual-Use Taught Me
How a 2017 ESA contract for autonomous battery-swap evolved into a decade of rigorous European research, and what that validation pathway transfers to the US market.
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048 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026A Decade in Autonomous Drones: What I Got Wrong
I started building drones in 2015 convinced the hardware was the hard part. Ten years on, here are the bets I got wrong and what replaced them.
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058 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026Counter-UAS and Dual-Use Drones, Explained Plainly
A plain-language primer on counter-UAS and dual-use drones, grounded in AUDROS, the real ESA and EDA CBRNe feasibility study I worked on.
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069 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026Battery Swap vs. Charging: The Core Drone-in-a-Box Tradeoff
A design essay on whether an autonomous drone should recharge in its dock or swap to a fresh battery, and why my ESA-era work bet on swap.
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079 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026The ESA Call: On Being the Firm That Showed Up
In 2017 a tiny Cervi Robotics won its first European Space Agency contract: an autonomous drone that lands and swaps its own battery. Here is the honest version.
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089 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026Building Hardware + AI in Europe: The Real Constraints
A founder's honest field guide to building a hardware-plus-AI deep-tech company in Europe: grant capital, in-house manufacturing, and the EU R&D programmes that fund and shape what you build.
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099 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026Why Robots Should Inspect Towers and Refineries
Sending people up transmission towers and into live refineries is slow, dangerous, and expensive. Here is the safety-and-economics case for autonomous inspection.
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108 MIN·UPDATED · JUN 2026What "Drone-in-a-Box" Actually Means: A Plain Guide
A drone-in-a-box is an autonomous docking station: the drone takes off on its own, inspects, lands, recharges or swaps its battery, and uploads data — no pilot on site.
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