If you’ve seen—or been on—the battlefield in Ukraine, one of the most significant shifts in drone warfare has been the proliferation of fiber-optic FPV drones. There’s a good reason for that: most UAV detection tech relies on RF sensing or expensive radars, which can be easily sidestepped—or saturated—by RF-silent drones. Enter brand-spanking-new startup RADD. This […]
When the Pentagon announced the FY26 APFIT program winners way back in December, they were very coy about which companies won which awards. One APFIT award stuck out—a $49.7M contract with the US Army for “Real-Time Command and Control at the Tactical Edge,” the largest APFIT award to date. Months later, San Antonio-based startup Darkhive […]
Lasers…so hot right now. Yesterday, AeroVironment (AV) unveiled the latest and greatest version of its LOCUST counter-drone laser, the X3. The platform, which AV says offers “engagements below $5 per shot,” is designed to take down small- to medium-sized drones. Lightshow: In case you haven’t been keeping your eye on the war in Iran, figuring […]
With all eyes on an autonomous future of flight, it’s easy to forget the human pilots who will remain firmly in the cockpit for the foreseeable future. Luckily, one San Francisco-based company is remaining focused on people, even as we await the rise of the robots. Yesterday, Navi AI—a startup using AI to improve pilot […]
Looks like Epirus is making its relationship with GD Land Systems into a throuple. This morning, directed energy counter-UAS startup Epirus announced that it’s teaming up with General Dynamics Land Systems and ground autonomy hotshot Kodiak to build a mobile, autonomous drone-zapper called the Leonidas Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV). The AGV will be equipped with […]
Coming at you live from the picks-and-shovels side of defense tech. Today, VectorNav—which makes high-performance Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs) and Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) for a whole range of zoomy and boomy things—rolled out a major upgrade to its accelerometer and gyroscope platform in an exclusive release to Tectonic. The upgrade is designed for super-high […]
For this morning’s exercise, we want you to take everything you’ve ever known about the way a drone looks or acts and throw it out the window. This morning, contested logistics startup Enigma emerged from stealth with a $5M Air Force contract and about $2M in VC funding in an exclusive release to Tectonic. The […]
It’s been a busy past few days for the weekend warriors over at Skydio. Yesterday, the US Army tapped California-based drone-maker Skydio to deliver 2,500 of its X10D small-UAS in a $52M contract, the largest sUAS order from a single vendor in Army history. The company said it moved from bid to award in under […]
Anduril is thinking big. Like really, really big—and nothing says that quite like Arsenal-1. Yesterday, Tectonic paid a visit to Anduril’s $1B, 5M square foot mega-factory just south of Columbus, Ohio, where the company (hard to call them a startup after a $20B Army contract) will kick off production of their Fury drone wingman in […]
If you thought the Crow Industries and Parry Labs mash-up was the only collab to come out of the Army’s xTech Overwatch competition, think again. This morning, GPS-free navigation company TERN and AI-powered simulation and planning company Sandtable announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up after the exercise to plug Sandtable’s […]
