Business
The Defense Department, with help from industry, will ramp up production and fielding of drones to maintain battlefield superiority. On July 16 at the Pentagon, 18 American-made drone prototypes were on display. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who toured the displays, said the drones that are manufactured using off-the-shelf components for
C-UAS
The Government of Canada has awarded two contracts for a total value of C$169,187,671.90 (USD 123,561,478 ) to CACI, Inc. - FEDERAL as part of the second phase of the Counter Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) Urgent Operational Requirement. This is a critical new capability to
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* Iveco Defence Vehicles (IDV) has been awarded by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) with a three- year contract for concept development and experimentation services for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) The programme requires IDV to combine Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and Unmanned Air Systems (UAS), coordinated and orchestrated
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* Airbus Defence and Space and US based Kratos Defense and Security Solutions have entered into a partnership based on the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, a flight-proven UCCA (uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft), which will be equipped with an Airbus made mission system, combat ready for the German Air Force by 2029. The
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has ended its experiment to create a heavy cargo seaplane. The nearly three-year-old Liberty Lifter program was intended to design and build — and possibly float and fly — a long-range, low-cost seaplane that could take off and land in rough seas. DARPA said in 2023
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* EuroUSC Italia, a long-established operator in drone regulation and risk assessment, rebrands as Unifly Consulting, marking the successful integration into the Unifly group. This move reflects more than a name change, it is a bold step toward realising Unifly’s vision of enabling safe, scalable, and fully integrated autonomous aviation.
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German autonomous strike drones startup Stark has acquired a Berlin-based company building autonomous navigation software for drones to boost its swarming capabilities. Two-year-old Pleno creates an AI pilot to turn low-cost quadcopters into autonomous systems that can use vision-based navigation for GNSS-denied environments, as well as neural network-based computer vision
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* UAV Navigation–Grupo Oesía is supplying its flight control system for the DRIADE fixed-wing UAV developed by SE Aviation. The French manufacturer platform, with 820 kg of Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) is designed for reconnaissance and wildfire response missions. Through this collaboration, UAV Navigation–Grupo Oesía brings its extensive expertise
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* Firestorm Labs, Inc., a supplier of advanced additive manufacturing and drone production solutions, has secured exclusive distribution rights from HP Inc. for its mobile Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D printing technologies. This collaboration cements Firestorm as the sole provider of HP's high-performance 3D printers in mobile and field-deployable
AI
* Shield AI, the deep-tech company building state-of-the-art autonomy software products and defense aircraft, has announced that the Netherlands Ministry of Defence has procured eight V-BAT unmanned aircraft systems to enhance maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations for the Royal Netherlands Navy and Marine Corps. The deal was publicly announced
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* Bell Textron Inc., a Textron Inc. company, has been down-selected for Phase 2 of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT) X-Plane program with the objective to complete design, construction, ground testing and certification of an X-plane demonstrator. “Bell is honoured to have been selected
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* TEKEVER, a European provider of AI-driven autonomous systems, has chosen Cahors as the location for its new Centre of Excellence for dual-use autonomous systems in France. This choice is the result of close collaboration with the Occitanie region, which played a major role in supporting the company at every stage