{"id":247519,"date":"2026-05-29T10:47:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/247519\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T10:47:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:47:43","slug":"ai-drones-are-changing-warfare-but-theyre-easy-to-sabotage-and-a-brooklyn-engineer-wants-to-change-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/247519\/","title":{"rendered":"AI drones are changing warfare \u2014 but they&#8217;re easy to sabotage, and a Brooklyn engineer wants to change that"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AI-powered drones are vulnerable to jamming, but a Brooklyn engineer has a fix.<\/p>\n<p>Brian Streem, CEO of Vermeer, developed a Visual Positioning System for drone navigation.<\/p>\n<p>Streem\u2019s tech is already deployed in Ukraine, aiming to save the Department of War a fortune.<\/p>\n<p>As the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/09\/world-news\/ukraine-deploys-interceptor-drones-experts-to-protect-us-bases-in-jordan-zelensky-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">wars in Iran and Ukraine grind on<\/a>, billions of dollars are being poured into <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/27\/us-news\/army-of-night-vision-drones-set-to-be-deployed-to-crack-down-on-illegal-fourth-of-july-fireworks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">autonomous and AI-powered drones<\/a>. Many see them as the future of fighting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But, while the technology is advancing rapidly, both manned and autonomous drones are extremely vulnerable to getting jammed or spoofed by enemy signals, which can result in the pricy weaponry getting destroyed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Long-range Shahed-style attack drones costing $50,000 are built to fly thousands of miles, carrying hefty warheads and complete complicated missions. But, they\u2019re often reliant on glitchy and dated GPS and camera systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39517511\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2277733190.jpg\" alt=\"drone\" class=\"wp-image-39517511\"  \/>While the technology is advancing rapidly, both manned and autonomous drones are extremely vulnerable to getting jammed or spoofed by enemy signals. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>A Brooklyn-based engineer is working to change that. \u201cWe\u2019re offering a\u00a0cornerstone technology,\u201d Brian Streem, CEO of Vermeer, told me. \u201cAI warfare isn\u2019t going to work unless you have our product.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Streem, is building a smarter camera with guidance and navigation systems in the drone itself. He has also created a vision-based navigation system (Visual Positioning System or VPS) that relies on electro-optical or infrared cameras feeding an onboard NVIDIA edge computer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:3.44444444;display:block\" decoding=\"async\" data-no-modal=\"true\" width=\"310\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/NYNEXT_Small.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32357644\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>This story is part of <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/ny-next\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NYNext<\/a>, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC\u2019s power players (and those who aspire to be).<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39517503\" width=\"590\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/614280c6e8980758682cf097_vermeer-brian-streem-headshot.jpg\" alt=\"Brian Streem\" class=\"wp-image-39517503\"  \/>Vermeer CEO Brian Streem says, \u201cAI warfare isn\u2019t going to work unless you have our product.\u201d Vermeer<\/p>\n<p>The system performs real-time terrain matching, celestial navigation, and terminal guidance against pre-loaded maps. The company is also adding evasive maneuvers to the VPS  to protect against enemy kinetic interceptors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The technology is already working in Ukraine, and Streem believes updating American drones with this kind of equipment will save a fortune for the Department of War.<\/p>\n<p>The technology is expensive \u2014 it costs around $20,000 to add his VPS to drones \u2014 but he believes it ultimately pays for itself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe cameras are observing the environment, and in real time, the drone is kind of deciding what to do on its own,\u201d Streem explained<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AI-powered drones are vulnerable to jamming, but a Brooklyn engineer has a fix. Brian Streem, CEO of Vermeer,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[66,98,100,99,288,1219,9,24,63,3957],"class_list":["post-247519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-business","tag-drones","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nynext"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}