In the 1960s, the Soviet Union stunned Western intelligence with the Caspian Sea Monster, a massive, winged ship that skimmed just above the water’s surface, hidden from radar. Turkey has revived and modernized that concept with TALAY, the world’s first sea-skimming multipurpose unmanned aerial vehicle. Ankara-based defense innovator
Swarms
The U.S. Air Force is seeking new technological solutions to coordinate swarms of small unmanned aircraft in contested environments where traditional satellite navigation is compromised. A new request for information (RFI) released by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) outlines plans to develop advanced position, navigation, and timing (PNT)
Russia has long been using 4G modems with SIM cards to transmit intelligence information from their drones, and Polish SIM cards were spotted on Russian UAVs shot down in Ukraine in early July, which Warsaw was warned about. The targeted Russian attack on Polish territory with long-range drones on the
Business
* TEKEVER and QinetiQ join forces through a strategic Memorandum of Understanding to accelerate next-generation capabilities of unmanned systems in the UK. The collaboration combines TEKEVER’s battle-proven operational platforms with QinetiQ’s world-class Test and Evaluation (T&E) infrastructure, with early results already demonstrated through AR3 radar cross-section tests.
Training
The Pentagon last month held its first 'Top Drone' school for drone pilots to demonstrate their skills in a threat-representative environment. The event took place as part of the Defense Department’s Technology Readiness Experimentation, or T-REX, a semiannual showcase and evaluation staged at Camp Atterbury in Indiana.
Business
* Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger confirmed plans to deliver mobile drone defense systems to Ukraine before the end of 2025. In an exclusive interview with Germany’s ZDF-Magazin WISO, Papperger said the deal—valued in the “three-digit million” euro range—will be signed on Wednesday at the Defence and Security Equipment
AAROK, Turgis Gaillard's Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone prototype, successfully completed its first flight from Blois-Le Breuil airfield. This new milestone demonstrates the progress of the program, essential for meeting the needs of the French and allied armed forces. AAROK "The level of maturity demonstrated is
Loitering Munitions - One Way Effector (OWE)
* General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. and AeroVironment collaborated on the air launch of a Switchblade 600 loitering munition (LM) from a GA-ASI Block 5 MQ-9A unmanned aircraft system (UAS). The flight testing took place from July 22-24 at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds Test Range. It marked the
Business
A ‘First of its kind’ industrial partnership allows the UK and Ukraine to share detailed designs for cutting-edge air defence drones and other equipment. The UK will manufacture and jointly develop cutting-edge military equipment with Ukrainian industry through a groundbreaking new technology sharing agreement which will support British jobs and
Software
* AeroVironment, Inc. has announced AV_Halo, a hardware-agnostic software platform that unifies the company's suite of mission-ready software tools — to include multi-domain command and control (C2), AI-enhanced intelligence analysis, synthetic training, and autonomous targeting — into a single open-standards software ecosystem capable of integrating with any other battle management
C-UAS
* SMARTSHOOTER, a designer, developer, and manufacturer of innovative fire control systems, is introducing a new configuration of its combat-proven SMASH 3000: adaptation onto a Heavy Machine Gun (HMG). The new solution will be presented for the first time at the DSEI 2025 exhibition in London. This milestone follows SMARTSHOOTER’s
Spain’s first SIRTAP unmanned aerial system prototype is now complete and slated to begin ground testing, in an ambitious schedule lasting a good portion of 2026, before the first delivery by 2027. Airbus Defence and Space, which manufactures the system, released a short video on Sep. 4, 2025, showing