Activated in February, the Army’s new Capability Program Executive for Mission Autonomy is assembling an acquisition organization unlike any that…
July, 2026
Scaling What Works: Drone Dominance Moves from Demand Signal to Industrial Reality
The XPONENTIAL keynote panel confronted the question the Drone Dominance Program answered first—and what it exposed in doing so. For…
Gauntlet II: What the Drone Dominance Program Is Asking Industry to Do Next
Program leadership laid out the structure, quantities, and competitive logic of Phase II at XPONENTIAL—and spent an hour in open…
Red Cat Builds Toward an All-Domain Robotics Ecosystem
Red Cat is assembling an interconnected portfolio of autonomous systems across air, land, sea and beyond—and betting the battlefield of…
XPONENTIAL 2026: Industrializing Autonomy
From the Drone Dominance Program to Blue UAS institutionalization, XPONENTIAL 2026 showed an industry pivoting from innovation to industrialization. For…
Kongsberg Maritime’s Eco-Autonomy Evolution
In Norway, chemical company Yara had a problem: its pollution-conscious government told it to stop trucking fertilizer and other cargos thousands…
New JIATF 401 Handbook Reframes Counter-Drone Defense Around Five First Principles
Joint Interagency Task Force 401 has published a 90-page handbook intended to give warfighters, federal agencies and local law enforcement…
Meeting the Operator Where They Are
DroneShield’s Tom Branstetter on U.S. Manufacturing Expansion, Multi-Domain Integration, and an Unprecedented Moment of C-UAS Alignment Tom Branstetter has spent…
19 Companies Out of 49 Contenders Qualify For Drone Dominance Gauntlet 2 Trial
The Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance Program has taken another step forward. Aimed at identifying and nurturing a championship stable…
Merlin Labs: Bringing Autonomy to the Air Force’s Bread-and-Butter Fleet
The U.S. Air Force’s autonomy future may rest less on next-generation platforms than on the 400 C-130Js and 300 KC-135s…
Levitate and the New Math of Military Drone Production
Times Microwave’s Levitate family is built for the middle market in military UAS: lighter than legacy aerospace practice, stronger than…
Amprius Technologies Scales Silicon Anode Batteries for Defense Drone Market
The company’s silicon anode cells deliver twice the flight time of standard lithium-ion. The race to build a compliant domestic…
Democratic Partnerships Are the Next Frontier for Trusted Autonomy
Washington is finally beginning to absorb a hard lesson: the United States cannot afford to lose robotics and autonomous systems…
Thales to Acquire Exail in €3.9 Billion Deal
Thales has signed a binding agreement to acquire the Gorgé family’s 35.51% stake in French maritime robotics and navigation firm…
Pentagon Consolidates Unmanned Systems Under New Portfolio Manager
The Department of Defense has established a new Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for unmanned offensive and defensive systems, designated DRPM-UxS,…
Ondas to Acquire DZYNE Technologies for $875.8 Million, Forming Ondas Sentinel Autonomous Defense Division
Deal unites World View’s stratospheric sensing with DZYNE’s long-endurance ISR, counter-UAS and precision-effects portfolio, and pushes Ondas’ 2026 revenue target…
AeroVironment Locks In $500 Million Domestic Shield IDIQ, Books First $80.5 Million Titan Task Order for Air Force Base Defense
Two same-day contract actions tie AV’s counter-UAS portfolio directly to the Pentagon’s expanding homeland counter-drone posture, with Titan systems already…
