Shares of Palladyne AI (PDYN) continued their upward trajectory on Monday, as the AI software creator for robots announced its technology had successfully tracked a moving target for the first time. The company has established that the Palladyne Pilot AI platform, used in a third-party small drone's flight, exhibited the capacity to identify, rank terrestrial targets based on importance, and communicate with the drone's autopilot software to autonomously follow the prioritized target.
Previously, Pilot had only been capable of recognizing and aiming at stationary locations and stationary drones. In this new experiment, the program, combined with the third-party autopilot software, managed to autonomously navigate the drone while identifying, prioritizing, tracking, and pursuing the selected target.
Dr. Denis Garagic, the Co-founder and CTO of the company, said they anticipate the commercialization of Palladyne Pilot to be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2025. Once achieved, Garagic stated that "economical, small-sized drones will finally have some of the intelligence capabilities that larger, multi-million-dollar unmanned systems have been providing for years."
The impressive feat has led to an increase in Palladyne AI's shares by 2% shortly after the market opened on Monday, and since the announcement last week, the shares have risen by over 200%, reaching their highest point in over two years.