Kielce Tests Pustułka, Poland's AI System for Detecting Drones and Gunshots

Kielce unveiled Pustułka, Poland's first acoustic monitoring system that uses domestically developed artificial intelligence to detect airborne and ground threats. A network of sensors placed on streets and rooftops is designed to recognize, in real time, the sounds of drones, gunfire, and illegal street racing.

The project is coordinated by the Główny Urząd Miar (Poland's Central Office of Measures), with the consortium also including the city of Kielce, the Provincial Police Headquarters in Kielce, the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection, and the AGH Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet. Each partner is responsible for a different part of the system, from computing infrastructure, through data visualization for the city, to an intervention module for police dispatchers.

How the system works

The network of acoustic sensors installed on major streets and rooftops sends data via fiber optic, radio, or cellular connection to a processing center. There, Polish AI algorithms analyze the sound signal and classify the threat within a few seconds, distinguishing, for example, a gunshot from fireworks or the sound of a drone from a passing airplane.

A network of acoustic sensors connected by fiber optic, radio, or cellular network will be installed on Kielce's main streets and building rooftops - Piotr Ziółkowski, Director General of the Główny Urząd Miar (Central Office of Measures)

The system also has civilian applications unrelated directly to security. The Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection will use the collected data to analyze the city's acoustic climate, meaning it will map street noise, which could help with urban planning and reduce the nuisance illegal car races cause for residents.

Dual use, civilian and military

The creators of Pustułka stress that the infrastructure, designed for everyday use by police and city administration, is meant to automatically switch into military mode as part of a warning system in a crisis. Integration with the systems of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency is under consideration, as is, in a wartime scenario, integration with the mObywatel app (Poland's official government ID app) and defense systems.

Infrastructure that functions for peacetime and crisis situations, primarily for police use, and for military applications in wartime - Piotr Ziółkowski, Director General of the Główny Urząd Miar (Central Office of Measures)

Kielce Mayor Agata Wojda announced that the city wants to serve as an urban laboratory for technologies that could later be rolled out nationwide. The consortium plans to submit a funding application this autumn 2026 to the Fundusze Europejskie dla Świętokrzyskiego (European Funds for Świętokrzyskie) program, with full sensor coverage of the region expected by 2028.

National scale and costs

The creators' vision ultimately calls for a network of 10,000-12,000 sensors placed in cities across Poland, which would give the country a continuous, distributed acoustic listening system useful both for everyday security management and in case of a military threat. Financing on such a large scale is meant to come partly from European defense infrastructure funds, access to which has opened up amid growing concern about the security of the region's airspace.

For Poland's AI industry, Pustułka is one of the few examples of domestic algorithms being deployed in a project of strategic rather than purely commercial character, setting it apart from most reports of AI use in public administration, which so far have been limited mostly to customer service chatbots.

Sources: A city that hears everything. Poland's Pustułka will catch a drone and a gunshot in seconds (innpoland.pl), Poland's city will eavesdrop on the sky. Pustułka is meant to detect drones (spidersweb.pl), Acoustic sensors in Kielce will detect drones, gunshots and illegal races (kielce.eu), Pustułka will detect drones over Kielce. And then over all of Poland? (defence24.pl)