In a barren field near Israel’s southern border, a young platoon commander kneels over a handheld console, Orion, a mission enhancement system from the Israeli firm ASIO. He uses it to plan a mission in real time; this is a snapshot of how Israel’s military now maps, moves, and decides under fire. The device connects frontline tactics to instant terrain modeling, letting small units design and share battle plans without waiting on distant command centers.
Dust rises as a lightweight drone lifts into the sky. Sunlight flashes on a compact, rugged controller cradled in the commander’s hands—a screen alive with maps, color overlays, and shifting data. He drags a finger across the display, tracing a nearby ridge where enemy fire once stalled his unit. Tasks that used to take days now unfold within hours.
As he tilts the screen, a 3D model of the terrain rotates into view. With another tap, a route appears shaded red for uphill and green for safe descent. The device warns of threat zones, nearby friendly forces, and deteriorating visibility. He doesn’t look up from the display. He doesn’t need to.
[1]Orion a mission enhancement system from the Israeli firm ASIO (Courtesy)
Across Israel, scenes like this are no longer futuristic; they are an operational reality. What once demanded satellite coordination and hours of analysis now happens in the field, in real time, under fire. The change reflects a distinctly Israeli approach known in the defense sector as “tech for defense,” blending agile, commercial-grade innovation with battlefield demands.
Back in the early 2000s, we were still using paper maps and notebooks while civilians already had smartphones and GPS
ASIO developed the system after its founders, brothers Tomer and Yaniv Malchi, veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) field intelligence and reconnaissance units, grew frustrated by outdated tools. “Back in the early 2000s,” recalls Tomer Malchi, the company’s co-founder and CEO, “we were still using paper maps and notebooks while civilians already had smartphones and GPS. If I wanted to request air support, it could take minutes, sometimes too long. By the time the pilot understood where I was, the situation was over.”
That experience pushed the team to design a platform that merges commercial technology with the reliability and ruggedness required in combat. The result is a compact ecosystem of digital command tools now common among Israeli infantry and special forces, combining real-time mapping, 3D terrain modeling, and augmented reality so small units can operate with independence once reserved for national command rooms.
[2]Tomer Malchi, co-founder & CEO of ASIO (Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line)
“Everything has to work with no communication,” Malchi explains. “Because in the field today, the fact is, there is almost no communication. It’s scarce and unreliable. If technology depends on it, it fails.” The design philosophy starts from the “mud up,” he says: “We asked ourselves, what does a tired, wet, overworked platoon leader actually need? It has to be simple. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to operate complicated systems while commanding 30 soldiers. So we built something intuitive, something that works instantly.”
In a demonstration observed by The Media Line, the operator simulates a live mission. He opens a 3D view of a mountainous region, marking enemy compounds and elevation lines. With a fingertip, he runs a visibility analysis that paints the landscape in color—green for ground under control and red for exposure. “If I place a sniper here,” he says, “I can see this sector but not that one. I might need two positions to cover it all.”
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We asked ourselves, what does a tired, wet, overworked platoon leader actually need? So we built something intuitive, something that works instantly
He zooms out, studies the ridgelines, and plots two safe approach routes. “Brown means uphill, green means downhill. The device will warn me when I’m too close to an enemy entity or when I’m visible to them.” What once belonged only in high-end command centers now fits in a soldier’s palm. “It’s a personal aiding device,” Malchi says. “Something that helps me plan, execute, and debrief my mission without waiting for anyone else.”
The same ecosystem includes a handheld monocular that overlays tactical data on live imagery, blending digital symbols with the soldier’s actual view. Outfitted with day and thermal cameras and a laser rangefinder, it turns situational awareness into something tangible. “Everything you see on the tablet is augmented in real life,” Malchi explains during a demo. “You look through it and see exactly where each entity is—friendly, hostile, or unknown.”
Weight matters in the field, so the device comes in at roughly 600 grams. “We didn’t make it light because we wanted to,” he says. “We had to. If it’s heavy, the soldier won’t use it. It has to sit on his personal gear, ready in seconds.”
What also stands out is how the system moves data. The devices function entirely offline. Mission plans can be shared through encrypted QR patterns between screens—one soldier points his camera at another’s device, and the data transfers in seconds without radio or network. “It’s like a viral way of passing combat data,” says Malchi. “We invented that because sometimes you just can’t connect. This way, we stay operational even in jammed or denied environments.”
Another component provides drone navigation in GPS-jammed areas, enabling precise flight “blind” to satellites. Visual algorithms match live ground imagery to stored maps and recalculate position in real time. “It operates completely on the edge,” Malchi says, using the industry term for local computing instead of external servers. “No communication, no GPS. It doesn’t care if the sky is jammed. It just flies.”
All of this feeds a single priority: autonomy. “Independence is everything,” Malchi insists. “If a battalion doesn’t have to rely on anyone—not for intelligence, not for communication—it can move faster and stay alive.” Feedback has poured in from the front. “We’ve had calls from guys returning from the front who just wanted to say thank you. Others asked to come work here. From the IDF’s standpoint, they consider this platform one of the key success stories for ground dominance.”
[4]Lynx (Courtesy)
Israel’s military has expanded use of the system since the war against Hamas that began in 2023, integrating it from company commanders down to squad leaders. It is now as routine as a rifle or radio. “Any junior commander has it,” Malchi notes. “It changed how we operate.”
Interest is growing beyond Israel as Western militaries study “tech for defense”—fast, adaptive, commercially inspired tools that challenge traditional procurement cycles. Instead of decade-long development for billion-dollar platforms, these systems evolve in months with modular, scalable software built for mass production. “Cost and scale are critical,” Malchi says. “You can’t bring something too expensive to the infantry. But today’s smartphones already hold tremendous technology, built cheaply because of scale. That’s what we leverage.”
Analysts argue the approach could reshape military effectiveness as combat shifts to dense urban terrain, where the edge goes to forces that can map, decide, and act faster. Digital situational awareness, once a luxury, has become a survival requirement. The philosophy rejects a strict divide between civilian and military innovation. “This is not classic defense tech,” Malchi says. “It’s tech for defense. We take what works in the civilian world, like the materials used in racing industries for lightweight durability, or the processing power of mobile chips, and we adapt it to survive combat.” He adds that agility is the point: “We move fast because the battlefield moves fast.”
Independence is everything, If a battalion doesn’t have to rely on anyone—not for intelligence, not for communication—it can move faster and stay alive
During another demo, the operator loads fresh drone footage into a field laptop. Within two hours, the machine generates a 3D model of an entire neighborhood, complete with elevation and visibility data. “This kind of product used to exist only in sophisticated command centers,” Malchi says, pointing at the screen. “Now a battalion can create it on its own, directly in the field.”
For the soldiers, the advantage is practical. They no longer wait for intelligence updates that may arrive too late or for aerial imagery that could be outdated by the next hour. They plan, execute, and adapt on their own. In modern warfare—from Gaza to Eastern Europe—that difference can mean survival.
Back at ASIO’s headquarters, Malchi reflects on the road from frustration to deployment. “We started by wanting to save lives,” he says quietly. “That’s still the goal. Technology alone doesn’t win wars. But if it helps our people come home, if it turns chaos into clarity, that’s everything.”
What began as an experiment in bridging commercial and tactical worlds has become a living system on the battlefield. The young commander closes his tablet, adjusts his helmet, and gestures forward. The operation begins. The data has already done its work. What once took days now takes hours, and in war, that difference can decide the outcome.