The U.S. military shot down three drones that were suspected of operating for Mexican cartels earlier this week. According to CBS News, the uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) were destroyed by an “Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser System” operated by U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

"Cartel networks are increasingly employing unmanned aircraft systems to facilitate illicit human-smuggling and actively spy on our personnel and law enforcement partners," Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, commander of the southern border's Joint Task Force, said in a statement. "By integrating layered countermeasures alongside advanced directed-energy capabilities like this laser system, we have made it clear that we will not tolerate hostile surveillance." It’s unclear if the drones were shot down over American or Mexican airspace, but a military spokesperson told the outlet that they “were taken in coordination with all partners operating along the border.”

This isn’t the first time that a laser weapon has been used to defend American airspace. Back in February, the Pentagon used a similar system after it detected and shot down unknown aerial targets. This resulted in the emergency closure of a major airport, resulting in massive disruptions, and it also turned out that the targets were later reported to be just party balloons. Another incident involving the use of laser weapons happened a couple of weeks later, and it resulted in the shooting down of an actual drone this time. Unfortunately, the targeted drone turned out to be from the Customs and Border Protection unit, not a hostile one operated by the Mexican cartels. The military refused to release further details about the recent drone shoot-downs, citing operational security and ongoing operations, but they’ve hopefully hit the correct targets this time.

The U.S. isn’t alone in deploying drones for protecting its assets and territories. The UK has recently revealed that it’s deploying its DragonFire laser weapon on Royal Navy destroyers by 2027, while China has developed a backpack-sized man-portable anti-drone laser system that can hit targets up to 1,600 feet away. While these systems are expensive to acquire, they’re much cheaper to operate compared to traditional man-portable air defense systems or MANPADS, with each shot costing as little as $13 (versus the thousands to millions of dollars for missiles). This makes them more economically feasible for defending against drones, whose effective use in the battlefield has been made prominent by Ukrainians as they defended against the much larger Russian military. But even if you’re a civilian, you can get your own laser air defense system for around $1,000 and protect your home from flying bugs.

San Francisco defense startup Mara has secured $7 million in a pre-seed round to produce what it calls Spike, a portable counter-drone system housed inside a backpack. The complete system costs $30,000 to $100,000, depending on the number of Seekers included, but its 250g (~8.8 ounces) autonomous interceptors are designed to cost no more than the few-hundred-dollar FPV quadcopters they destroy. Those quadcopters, which carry munitions capable of destroying armored vehicles worth millions, are now reported to be the leading cause of Ukrainian combat casualties.

A single Spike launcher holds up to 48 of the Seeker interceptors and reloads in less than a minute, with each Seeker capable of engaging targets out to roughly one mile, per Mara's published specs. In an exclusive interview, CEO Daniel Kofman told the outlet Tectonic Defense how FPV crews operate on the frontline. "They launch from anywhere at anything, and they never attack one at a time. They always attack four to six at a time in waves, doing pincer strikes in rapid succession or simultaneously."

The system's Spotter targeting unit fuses electro-optical and acoustic sensors with an optional low-emission W-band radar, and Mara says it detects and tracks fiber-optic and fully autonomous drones in all weather, day or night. Radio-frequency jammers and RF-based detectors can't touch either drone type, since neither emits a control signal to find or break.

Kofman says that the Seekers are built to trade at a "one-to-one" or a "worst case, two-to-one" cost ratio against the drones they intercept, with Mara claiming that the interceptor costs 20 times less than the next-cheapest alternative. Fully autonomous, Mara claims the Seekers respond much faster than a human can react to a 100 mph quadcopter, though a human stays in the loop at all times to set rules of engagement and abort launches.

Mara’s system is substantially cheaper than systems like Lockheed Martin's reusable Morfius X-Rotor, which downs swarms with high-power microwaves, but close to the $1,000 3D-printed interceptors Ukraine builds against Shahed-type drones, though those target larger, slower threats than FPV quadcopters.

Mara joined NATO's DIANA accelerator 2026 cohort and holds cooperative research agreements with three unnamed U.S. defense organizations. The company is also running a civilian pilot at a South Korean commercial port. Ukrainian forces have operated Spotter near the front line, where the company says it tracked multiple FPV drones from 40km (~25 miles) back, and Mara has its first paid order from a European NATO partner for an undisclosed exercise.

Ground-mounted Spike units are due to be in customers' hands by the end of 2026, with vehicle-mounted and man-portable variants and scaled production planned for 2027.

The U.S. Navy successfully tested a sail-powered drone in live-fire exercises in the Pacific: the Saildrone Surveyor SD-3001 Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV), which was co-developed with Lockheed Martin to carry lethal combat technology. During the recent Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026 exercises, the Saildrone launched two combat-proven Joint-Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM) in coordination with the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) Carrier Strike Group. The Saildrone’s use in passive electronic warfare (EW) tasks was also verified during the exercises.

At RIMPAC, the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) Carrier Strike Group had access to the Saildrone as a combat asset for the first time. Under the control of ARES, the sea drone successfully launched two lethal JAGM missiles. These missiles feature two independent guidance modes: a semi-active laser and millimeter-wave radar. Combining both, the JAGM can be effective in all weather, including low-visibility maritime environments.

The development of the Saildrone Surveyor SD-3001 USV with JAGM has been remarkably rapid. Work began on the collaborative project back in October 2025, with the partners hoping to “combine Saildrone unmanned surface vehicles with Lockheed Martin’s combat-proven effectors.” Both parts of the equation were operationally proven, yet getting everything working as intended within six months, and then taking part in a successful live-fire demo remains quite an achievement. The goal also required the integration of the USV into the Navy fleet environment so it would work with the Navy’s Adjunct Remote Engagement System (ARES). That’s what was demonstrated at RIMPAC this year.

Another useful function of the long-term, long-range autonomous Saildrone demonstrated at RIMPAC was its EW capability. The sail-sporting drone coordinated its sensors with an MH-60S helicopter to successfully detect, classify, and identify a surrogate threat during the exercises.

Lockheed Martin, Saildrone, and the U.S. Navy have more tests and trials planned for this seafaring USV. Saildrone notes that the “SD-3001 is now well on its way to its next mission.” Meanwhile, work alongside Lockheed Martin continues, with this demonstration claimed to have de-risked larger payload integrations planned for the larger Saildrone Spectre. The Spectre is expected to carry “significantly larger containerized capabilities including the Lockheed Martin Mk 70 launcher and SURTASS Towed Array.”

A Russian Molniya drone carrying an Nvidia Jetson Orin module crashed and killed three civilians at a gas station in Zaporizhzhia last month after choosing its final target without a human pilot, according to a New York Times investigation that cites Ukrainian air defense commanders, drone experts, and the forensic team that examined the wreckage.

Kateryna Bondar, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the paper it's the first documented case of civilian deaths caused by a Russian drone using fully autonomous targeting. The dead were Tetiana Bubynets, a 19-year-old accounting student, and two men aged 41 and 48.

Human operators launched the drone toward the gas station, per the report, but the final aim point was selected onboard by software trained to recognize objects such as propane tanks. The aircraft failed to clear an apartment building on its approach, struck a wall, and detonated near people sheltering below, rather than striking its chosen target.

The strike drone flew in a group of roughly half a dozen aircraft, none of which emitted radio traffic, Ukrainian air defense officials said. Modules recovered from this attack and from intact test drones carried no encryption, so investigators could examine both the terrain imagery loaded for visual navigation and the code specifying which object classes the drone had been trained to attack. "Machines are making decisions to strike," Col. Serhiy Minaiev, Zaporizhzhia's air defense commander, told the NYT. Russia is understood to have begun AI-guided test flights of the mass-produced, fixed-wing Molniya in May, after months of self-targeting trials with the V2U.

Nvidia confirmed to the New York Times that modules photographed in the recovered drones were Jetson Orin minicomputers, hardware that sells for a few hundred dollars. "Our Jetson Orin modules are consumer-grade products sold to students, developers, and startups for a wide range of beneficial applications," an Nvidia spokesperson told Tom's Hardware. "They are not available in Russia and are not designed for military purposes. Pre-owned Jetsons are available through many reseller channels. Although we cannot track products after they are sold, if we determine that any customer is violating U.S. export controls, we will take appropriate action."

Ukrainian investigators have now linked the Jetson Orin to four Russian weapon families. A teardown by Ukraine's GUR intelligence agency last June found one seated on a Chinese Leetop A603 carrier board inside the V2U loitering munition, in combat use since February 2025. Weeks later, a Ukrainian general said the module powered object recognition in the upgraded Shahed MS001, and earlier this month Ukraine reported the same silicon in the S-71M Monochrome cruise missile. Data-center AI accelerators fall under U.S. export controls; edge modules like the Jetson Orin, with variants starting at $249, don't.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's recently ousted defense minister, told the NYT that Kyiv tested its own fully autonomous system against fuel storage and military equipment in occupied Crimea in recent months, and Ukrainian quadcopters killed Russian soldiers in autonomous mode as far back as 2024. In Zaporizhzhia, defenses now include roughly 240 miles of anti-drone netting and plastic sheeting propped at odd angles around propane tanks to throw off image recognition.

The U.S. Army tested an autonomous breaching vehicle with an onboard counter-UAS (C-UAS) turret during a live-fire exercise at Fort Bragg on August 18. As part of Project Sandhills 2.0, self-driving Ford F-250 trucks were put through their paces, some armed with computer-controlled drone-killing shotgun turrets.

Sandhills 2.0 builds on the original Sandhills project which spawned the Lancer UGV, built on the Polaris Ranger 1500 utility vehicle, which ended up being gifted to Ukraine. However, this new breaching solution adds C-UAS abilities to bolster their abilities to clear the way for human soldiers to advance. Breaching operations can be seriously compromised by a determined enemy using increasingly common FPV drone technology and this fact inspired the changes delivered in Sandhills 2.0.

The vehicle chosen for Sandhills 2.0 was a self‑driving Ford F‑250 truck, equipped with Forterra’s AutoDrive system. Ford’s readily available spares should make the F-250-based system easier to maintain and repair, reckons Forterra’s VP of defense. That is another important factor the designers weighed, for this latest iteration of a viable U.S. Army autonomous breaching vehicle.

Meanwhile, the Edda counter-unmanned aircraft system turret (built by Austin-based 9 Mothers) takes care of fast-moving drone threats of 7-inch diameter or larger, at ranges between 10 to 100m (33 to 328 feet). The source report notes that the turret weighs around 23kg (50 pounds).

Interestingly, the turret first detects incoming drones acoustically before an onboard visual tracking system locks on. This methodology prevents the F-250-based system from being easily detectable by advanced enemy drone sensors, suggests the source report. Finally the shotgun-armed Edda engages the enemy drone. According to 9 Mothers published data the Edda turret is an “ultra-fast, ultra-light, ultra-accurate motion platform — 5° in under 15 ms at 1.5 arcminute precision.” We would welcome some test data, though – like what percent of drones get destroyed in one shot, the maximum speed of drones that Edda can engage, or how many drones it can handle per minute.

HoverAir has pulled the Flight Kit for its Versa camera drone from U.S. buyers on its Indiegogo campaign three days after it opened on August 19, telling backers that "due to a few remaining logistics updates with the Flight Kit, we're currently only shipping our PocketOnly and PocketCombo combos to the US." In a statement to DroneXL, however, the FCC says the authorization "was granted erroneously," the device is "a prohibited UAS critical component produced in a foreign country," and the company was "apparently willfully violating" the law.

The Versa, a 230g pocket gimbal camera that snaps into a separate propeller chassis to fly, raised more than $230,000 in its debut, thanks to a U.S. certification that HoverAir said let it dodge the ban that's kept DJI's newest models out of the country. The device's FCC ID has since disappeared from the commission's equipment database, according to The Verge, which said HoverAir declined to comment.

The FCC granted ID 2AIDW-ZZ-H-1-006 to Shenzhen Zero Zero Infinity Technology, the HoverAir parent's grantee entity, earlier this month for the Versa as a camera rather than a drone. The Flight Kit carries the motors and props but no radio, drawing power and telemetry from the camera through pogo pins, meaning it never needed its own FCC ID.

HoverAir announced the certification on August 18 and priced the camera at $449 early bird, with Flight Kit bundles starting around $630 and shipping slated for October. By August 21, U.S. visitors to the Indiegogo page couldn't see the Flight Kit tiers while Canadian visitors still could, and backers received an email attributing the change to "a few remaining logistics updates with the Flight Kit."

The December 2025 Covered List order that barred new authorizations for foreign-made drones also covers "UAS critical components," which the FCC's public notice DA 25-1086 defines to include flight controllers, navigation systems, batteries, motors, and "sensors and cameras," with the list marked as not exhaustive. A camera built to bolt onto a propeller frame satisfies that definition regardless of which product category it's certified under, and the FCC said it's now "sending guidance to all Telecommunications Certification Bodies to strengthen their due diligence of applications." The commission outsources equipment authorization to those private labs, which is likely how the Versa grant slipped through the cracks.

The only exemptions issued so far were approved back in January and cover Blue UAS-listed aircraft and components that qualify as domestic end products. Neither applies to a Chinese consumer camera; DJI is challenging the underlying order in court.

HoverAir's previous crowdfunder, the waterproof Aqua, raised more than $2 million from over 1,800 Indiegogo backers in August last year but missed the December deadline after the October government shutdown slowed FCC processing. It launched in more than 50 countries in May without the U.S., with American backers offered refunds.

The Versa is still listed with the Flight Kit in other markets, and U.S. backers can still take the camera-only tiers, though the FCC's statement that even the camera is a prohibited component casts doubt on that option. HoverAir is due to show the Versa at IFA in Berlin on September 3, with retail availability planned for fall.

Meteoric, a startup by two engineers from the University of Cambridge and backed by Y Combinator, plans to build drones that will autonomously fly inside low- and mid-altitude clouds near solar farms to dissipate them and help keep power production in optimum conditions. According to Mete Karslioglu, Meteoric’s CEO, these drones will mechanically alter the water droplets inside clouds that cover solar farms, reducing their reflectivity and increasing the amount of sunlight that hits the panels below.

“Low and mid-level overcast clouds cut incoming sunlight by 73–82% while they’re overhead. We recover that without building new infrastructure,” Karslioglu wrote in their Y Combinator post. “Fleets of 10s-100s of autonomous drones that fly into low and mid-altitude clouds (1–5 km) over a solar farm and alter the water droplets that form them without using any chemicals. This reduces their reflectivity and brings back measurable amounts of sunlight to the panels below. Our cloud-loss model shows that this process can increase annual generation from existing assets by 10-30% across major U.S. grid regions, worth ~$5,000-28,000/MW, without building any new infrastructure.” They also added, “Our ultimate goal is to reduce the intensity of severe storms and hurricanes.”

It’s unclear what method the startup will use to help dissipate clouds, but it claims to have a working prototype that dissipated an artificial cloud by 13% in cloud-chamber tests. Techniques to dissipate fog and low clouds already exist, like dispersing solid or liquid carbon dioxide inside them to make the floating water droplets grow bigger and encourage them to fall from the sky, or through mechanical mixing, such as flying a helicopter through saturated air in order to mix them with drier air and make it easier for the water vapor to evaporate. However, Meteoric said that these methods are expensive, with aircraft operations costing $2,000 per hour or more. On the other hand, its electric drones would only cost $30 to $60 an hour, making its operations significantly cheaper.

This is a unique approach to one of the biggest problems of solar power, where changing weather patterns and the day/night cycle greatly reduce their output. Other institutions, both startups and tech giants, are also looking for ways to solve this. For example, Reflect Orbital proposes launching an orbital mirror to reflect sunlight in various areas to extend daylight, while Meta plans to put solar collecting satellites in geosynchronous orbit and then beam the sunlight to collectors on the ground below.

Now, the startup’s premise looks promising for localized applications, like solar plant deployments. However, its dream of scaling up to impact storms and hurricanes raises some questions. The World Meteorological Organization says that the amounts of energy involved in weather systems are so massive that it’s impossible to alter or eliminate severe weather phenomena. “Weather modification technologies that claim to achieve such large-scale or dramatic effects do not have a sound scientific basis and should be treated with suspicion,” the group said. There’s also the concern that modifying weather conditions, even locally, might have unintended consequences on the local ecosystem. Nevertheless, Meteoric’s plan to increase solar output by cutting cloud cover might be interesting for solar operators looking to maximize the production of their plants.

On the same week that Amazon announced plans to expand its Prime Air Delivery service to 500 more cities and towns across the U.S., a video filmed by a Texas woman has surfaced, documenting the moment one of the company's delivery drones unceremoniously dumped a package straight into her swimming pool. The viral video was filmed after Lindsey Austen heard her drone buzzing loudly and ran outside to record it.

As you can see from the footage below, shared by ABC 7 News, the Texas Amazon customer was excited to receive her first drone-delivered order. "After hearing the loud buzzing of the drone arriving, she ran outside to record the delivery," the caption states. The painfully amusing footage shows the drone, humming loudly as it hovers over the woman's pool. The woman repeats "Oh my God" in anticipation, before yelling "Oh ****," as the autonomous robot opens its door and drops the package into the pool.

As mentioned, on Wednesday, Amazon announced it would expand Prime Air to nearly 500 cities and towns in the United States by the end of 2026, a 6x increase that will reportedly benefit tens of millions of customers. According to Amazon, its drone delivery selection includes millions of groceries, electronics, cosmetics, medications, and household products, which can be delivered in as little as 30 minutes.

Amazon already serves seven states with Prime Air, including the aforementioned Texas, where the unfortunate pool party took place. According to Amazon, Prime Air "is built to operate responsibly, and the safety of the employees, customers, and communities Amazon serves is the top priority." Its delivery service holds Federal Aviation Administration Part 135 certification, and "multiple independent systems" keep the drones "operating safely and predictably" while in flight, even in unexpected situations, Amazon claims. "Prime Air’s industry-leading Detect-and-Avoid system continuously monitors the airspace and environment around the drone. It’s similar to a trained pilot who scans the surrounding airspace, and it allows the drones to independently see and make real-time decisions while in flight," the company continues.

Adding to the irony, Amazon says that Prime Air drones use onboard cameras and sensors to navigate, check for obstacles, and deliver packages safely. Certainly, nothing unsafe happened in the video; the package fell harmlessly into the water, with no bystanders around to be struck. Likewise, in the video, the drone doesn't collide with any obstacles, but clearly, some malfunction in the final moments of delivery convinced the drone that simply dropping the package in the swimming pool was a good idea.

A drone that destroyed a Tupolev Tu-95MS strategic bomber at Russia's Engels-2 air base last month turns out to be a MICH 2000, a reverse-engineered copy of a Chinese aircraft Beijing refused to sell to Ukraine, according to a factory report from defense outlet Oboronka. Built by an unnamed manufacturer exclusively for the SBU's 'Alpha' special operations center, the flying-wing drone carries up to a 60 kg warhead as far as 2,000 km and costs $48,000 in its base configuration, $2,000 less than the Chinese ZTK-150 it was copied from. It’s understood that Ukrainian developers covertly photographed the Chinese production line while attending pilot training there in late 2023.

China restricted exports of civilian drones in the summer of 2023 after Ukrainian units converted airframes like the Mugin-5 PRO into deep-strike munitions. A Ukrainian development team traveled to a Chinese factory late that year, found ZTK-150s in production, and negotiated to buy the manufacturing technology, but the factory's management blocked the sale.

Intermediaries offered pilot training instead, and the team accepted. "In parallel with the training, we photographed everything that was there," one team member, whom Oboronka didn't name, said in the report, which was cleared in advance by the manufacturer and the SBU. The team flew home with eight drones.

The first Ukrainian-built prototype crashed 1 km into its maiden flight in the summer of 2024, and Russian electronic warfare downed the third test aircraft. In the type's first combat sortie that October, one of three drones was shot down and the other two fell roughly 10 meters short. Yet, Alpha ordered production anyway.

Almost nothing of the ZTK-150 remains in the current MICH 2000 beyond its outline, the manufacturer told Oboronka. Two years of work localized engines, warheads, fuselages, and rocket boosters across dozens of Ukrainian suppliers, putting domestic content at 85% of the drone's value. Fitting a jam-resistant CRPA navigation antenna, however, cuts that to 55%, because the antennas cost $20,000 to $25,000 depending on module count and only a handful of companies worldwide make them. Ukraine has been chasing jam-resistant navigation across its strike drone fleet since at least 2025.

The company builds around 6,000 drones a year across eight versions, with buyers choosing analog, digital, or Starlink communications, and reinvests roughly $1 million a month in R&D while scaling toward 10,000 units annually. Fire Point, maker of the FP-1 that flew 2,500 km to hit Russia's largest refinery, targets 100,000 drones a year, though the FP-1 serves many units and the MICH 2000 has one customer.

Alpha has launched thousands of MICH 2000s at hundreds of targets, per the manufacturer, including a Wildberries logistics hub in Ryazan oblast, an anti-Starlink electronic warfare system near Gelendzhik, and the port of Ust-Luga, where one raid put more than 20 drones over the target. The SBU said the Engels-2 strike tore the tail section off the Tu-95MS, and satellite imagery later confirmed the bomber's destruction. A successor called MICH+ drops the type's forward canards and pairs a 70 kg warhead with a 600 km range at a target price near $40,000.

A research team from Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Microbiorobotic Systems Laboratory (MICROBS) has developed a “sound-powered engine” that uses the resonant frequency of a specially shaped 3D-printed cavity to “energize” the air inside it and use it for thrust. The researchers then 3D-printed two small drones that were propelled by sound.

Sound waves at specific frequencies made the air molecules in these objects oscillate much more strongly and are then pushed out a specially designed nozzle as a concentrated jet.

“Instead of pushing devices around with sound waves, we have created acoustic resonators that are tuned to harness sound at specific frequencies to generate directional thrust and controlled motion,” MICROBS head Selman Sakar told the publication. “Our work shows the feasibility of transforming a simple, cleverly designed mechanical piece into robot matter.”

The team has created three practical applications of the “engine.” One is a boat that used three resonators — one placed at the rear of the boat and tuned to 540 Hz for propulsion and two on either side for navigation — while the other two are microfliers or tiny flying machines powered by ultrasonic frequencies.

The first microflier has three cavities, all facing downward, allowing it to lift off the ground like a rocket. The second flier has three blades connected at a central point, like the rotor of a helicopter, with the base of each blade equipped with a resonator pointing backward. When the resonators are hit with the exact frequency that drives them, they deliver thrust that allows them to rotate at over 12,000 rpm and cause the entire thing to hover. Note that ultrasonic frequencies are inaudible to humans, meaning these devices can hover practically noiselessly.

While not exactly the same as xMEMS’ fan-on-a-chip cooling solution, it follows the same principle of using vibrating air molecules to cause airflow. The biggest difference here is that the fan-on-a-chip uses an ultrasonic piezoelectric membrane to excite the air and cause it to move to a desired direction, while the “sound-powered engine” uses a specific cavity shape and resonant frequencies to achieve the same effect.

Even though the team has successfully used it for experiments, the microfliers’ maximum altitude is less than 5mm while the boat weighed next to nothing. Nevertheless, now that they’ve proven that the concept works, the next step is to scale it up to carry payload. If they can make it work, it could potentially be used as propulsion for a micro-drone, like this mosquito-sized unit from China.

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team (3rd BCT) of the 1st Cavalry Division took part in the semi-annual Combined Resolve exercise in Germany, where it faced off with a dedicated U.S. Army OPFOR (opposing force) unit augmented by the 412th Unmanned Systems Brigade, better known as 412 Nemesis, an elite multidomain Ukrainian unit primarily operating drones. According to the Wall Street Journal, the 3,500-strong unit, which was tasked to attack the OPFOR, had many of its tanks and other armored vehicles eliminated during the simulated engagements.

The 3rd BCT is quite a powerful unit, and has been traditionally equipped with M1 Abrams tanks, M2 and M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, M109 Paladin Howitzers, and more. It also had standard electronic warfare and counter-drone operators to protect its vehicles against new threats. But despite the impressive armor and firepower of its equipment and the additional protection of its own specialized anti-drone troops, the 3rd BCT still didn’t stand a chance against the small and nimble drones of 412 Nemesis. It turned out that the biggest assets of the 3rd BCT are its biggest weakness. As the heavy vehicles maneuvered around the battlefield, they threw up plumes of dust that made them easy to spot by Ukrainian recon drones. From there, the UAV operators of 412 Nemesis turned these metal predators into sitting ducks as they either dropped bombs or explosives from loitering attack drones or used first-person-view (FPV) drones to smash directly into their targets.

Since this is an exercise, there were no actual losses — instead, damaged or destroyed tanks are marked by an attack drone hovering above them. Once an observer has awarded an official “kill,” the vehicle is sent back to the rear to “respawn” and continue the war game.

The WSJ noted that the U.S. pioneered the use of UAVs on the battlefield and often used them for reconnaissance and even long-range strikes. Even today, the U.S. Navy is developing an aerial refueling drone to release more important assets like the F/A-18 Super Hornet from mundane (but important) duties like air-to-air refueling. However, the Ukrainians have mastered the use of short-range drone warfare as they defended their country from the 2022 Russian invasion. The war has been going on for over four years now, and Ukraine’s successful use of drones has helped them hold off the Russians from pushing further into the country. Aside from using drones tactically on the front lines, Ukraine has also started deploying them strategically, conducting strikes deep into Russian territory and targeting gasoline infrastructure in Siberia, more than 1,500 miles (2,500km) from its launch site.

The experience of most units in American and NATO armed forces have been against poorly armed (but still dangerous) insurgents, so exercises like these are crucial for them to keep their edge. Even though the 3rd BCT was “decimated” in its initial engagements against the OPFOR and the 412 Nemesis, its performance gradually improved, and its troopers have become more proficient in dispersing their units to make them harder to target, as well as cover and concealment, making it harder for reconnaissance drones to spot them from afar.

While a few argue that drone warfare has made tanks obsolete, some officers in the U.S. military argue that this is only true if the situation has devolved into a stalemate, like the current situation on the Ukrainian front lines. If a gap in the lines appears and either side wants to exploit it, mobile warfare would still require the combined effort of tanks, armored vehicles, mobile artillery, helicopter support, and infantry. However, Ukrainian commanders disagree, saying that, in their experience, drones have made maneuver warfare unfeasible, at least for now.

Nations across the world recognize the threat that drones have to their forces, too. So, even as they build their own drone units, they’re also trying to develop effective counters to them, like this microwave system from Lockheed Martin or China’s man-portable anti-drone laser. If these devices make it to the front line and prove to be effective against drone attacks, they could potentially change the equilibrium and give one side an advantage over the other.

During a two-week transit to RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii, a containerized factory aboard the USS Essex 3D printed a dozen flight-ready drones, as well as over 1,000 parts including vital spares for Apache helicopters. 3D Printing Industry reports that this was the first maritime run of the xCell expeditionary manufacturing platform from Firestorm Labs. Furthermore, production wasn’t halted by the rough seas and up to 12 ft waves endured during the journey.

In Firestorm’s words, this additive manufacturing milestone using the xCell platform “just proved expeditionary manufacturing works in real conditions.” The 3D printers on board produced a plethora of useful things during the journey, on demand.

xCell’s containerized production line takes up just two expandable 20-foot ISO containers, or a single 40-foot equivalent. Inside are industrial HP Multi Jet Fusion polymer printers alongside semi-automated assembly stations.

Our headlining pick from the range of products that were manufactured at sea was the twelve quadcopter drones. These were Squall FPV drones, one of Firestorm Labs’ key products. The NDAA-compliant Squall is designed for U.S. forces to “Print. Build. Fly. Dominate.”

Squall has a range of up to 20 miles, a flight time of up to 42 minutes, a top speed of 80 mph, and can carry a 5.5-pound payload. These same drones were flown as adversary aircraft in a counter-UAS exercise when the USS Essex arrived at RIMPAC.

Drones might be the most newsworthy output from xCell, but other essentials that the crew printed en route to Hawaii included printed Apache helicopter rotor droop‑stops, designed to prevent $500,000 rotor damage during at‑sea operations. Another spare part highlighted by the source that was needed during the exercises was a 3D-printed custom vacuum‑hose coupling for life preserver testing.

Making up the 1,000+ 3D-printed parts and spares were crew-requested gadgets and gizmos like covers for electrical fittings, a bracket for mounting Starlink, gauges for checking deck tie-downs, and lots more. “Every part xCell printed on deck is one that doesn't need to be flown or shipped across contested waters — cutting the fuel, aircraft hours, and personnel it takes to keep a ship operational,” boasted Firestorm on social media. “Repairs that once meant days or weeks waiting on a resupply run can now happen in hours, on station.”

U.S. aerospace, defense and security giant Northrop Grumman thinks it has a solution that will provide short-range, layered air defense against the increasingly complex aerial threats we see in modern war. The new Raid Hunter uses the firm’s Chain Gun technology to defend targets from cruise missiles, drone swarms and other evolving threats. It thus addresses an area identified as a “critical short-range air defense gap.” Furthermore, the modular Raid Hunter can be rapidly deployed on the C-130 and other vehicles, with networking enabling sensor fusion and coordinated engagements.

We have seen in Ukraine, and more recently in the Middle East, that modern air defense systems are struggling with high-volume drone swarms and low-flying cruise missiles. The sheer amount of aerial threats is overwhelming defense systems that have traditionally been designed to knock out warplanes and cruise missiles. Moreover, expensive anti-air missiles such as the Patriot system seem inappropriate and imbalanced for stopping far cheaper and more numerous drones.

“War has evolved. Air Defenders need the ability to defend against large, complex raids designed to overwhelm traditional defense solutions,” said Kenn Todorov, VP and GM, command and control & weapons integration, at Northrop Grumman. This is the perceived gap Northrop Grumman hopes the Raid Hunter will fill.

Now that we have spelled out clearly what it is for, let’s look more closely at the Raid Hunter. Central to its proposed task is what Northrop Grumman calls its “proven Chain Gun technology, [and] precision‑guided 50mm ammunition.” This large-caliber and high-rate-of-fire gun is cost-effective, can be equipped with deep magazines, with fast reloads. It addresses “the economic challenge of massed swarming threats,” asserts the defense firm.

Raid Hunter is also easy to get into position, or move out of harm’s way, as a palletized modular design that can be vehicle-mounted or containerized.

This new counter-UAS solution’s abilities scale well, too. Northrop Grumman indicates that multiple Raid Hunter deployments can work as an integrated system in a networked, interoperable way. It also integrates with layered defense architectures – including other air and missile defense systems - to protect critical assets across a range of operations.

Tests of the Raid Hunter are going to continue this year to validate its counter-UAS and air defense capabilities. It is hoped that the tests will support accelerated fielding of these air defense systems.

The Trump administration has announced new tariffs on foreign-made drones and their components, according to the Financial Times. The move is said to secure domestic supply chains and curb reliance on foreign technology, particularly from China. The new duties target both commercial and unmanned aerial systems, signaling a major push in the tech trade war. The administration justified the newly introduced tariffs on the grounds of national security under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that import penetration is “substantial" and the US is "too reliant" on foreign drone producers.

According to the report, the White House will slap a 100% tariff on sensitive foreign drones, specifically those weighing over 25 kilograms or equipped with thermal imaging capabilities. Smaller, non-sensitive drones having a maximum take-off weight of 25kg will face a 25% import duty. To ease the transition, Washington is offering lower tariff rates for close allies. Drones from the European Union, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan will face a 15% tariff, while the United Kingdom is subject to a 10% rate, provided the hardware and technology originate in those locations or the US.

The regulation comes as the White House separately accused more than 40 countries of actively helping Beijing circumvent US tariffs by rerouting products through third-party nations. According to Craig Singleton, a US-China technology competition expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “It still primarily targets China, but it’s designed to stop supply-chain laundering." This allowed US companies to import and assemble millions of Chinese drone components like motors, rotors, and frames.

The tariffs are expected to force US commercial and government agencies into an immediate, capital-intensive pivot towards domestic or allied suppliers. Notably, US drone manufacturers, including AeroVironment Inc., Aevex Corp., and Unusual Machines Inc., saw their stock prices surge in post-market trading following the announcement.

Back in December 2025, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had announced a sweeping ban on new drones and critical components produced in foreign countries. This included products from Chinese manufacturers such as DJI and Autel Robotics. The decision followed a White House national security determination that foreign-made unmanned aircraft systems could pose risks related to surveillance, data exfiltration, and potential disruptions.

Reducing (or completely eliminating) the charge time for drones has been a continual area of research, with some advancements, such as quantum batteries showcased earlier this year, showing a lot of promise. Researchers at the Civil Aviation University of China have made a major breakthrough in laser-based OTA (Over The Air) charging that can convert energy at 38.94% efficiency.

According to a study published in Matter & Light, scientists from the Civil Aviation University of China are testing a lightweight receiver that can harvest energy from a laser beam sent from the ground. The system uses a perovskite laser cell-thermoelectric (PLC-TE) tandem device, which combines two methods of generating electricity. The perovskite layer converts laser energy into electricity, while the thermoelectric layer recovers some of the resulting heat and turns it into additional power. Its output increases as the temperature difference between the laser-facing side and the cooler side grows.

The major challenge with this setup is that intense laser beams heat up the receivers to a blistering 80 to 90 degrees Celsius, degrading efficiency and causing damage to the aircraft itself. “That was much higher than we expected and made us realize that heat buildup was a far more serious problem than we had imagined,” explained Jianhua Han, the study's senior author.

To overcome this challenge, Han's team added special nanocrystals to the receiver. As the nanocrystals are poor heat conductors, it allows them to act as a thermal barrier and protect the perovskite and thermoelectric layers. The team also added air channels to the drone's wings. As the propellers spin, airflow passes through these channels and carries excess heat away, helping to keep the system cool. The combination of nanomaterials and aerodynamic cooling resulted in a respectable 38.49% energy conversion efficiency during testing, which is one of the highest reported for this class of technology.

While the system is yet to undergo outdoor flight tests, this breakthrough alone is a significant step toward practical continuous flight for drones. As Han noted, going from 1 to 100 will require solving complex tracking and safety challenges, but this research establishes an important starting point for the future of drones and UAVs.

HoverAir, makers of self-flying selfie drones, have just unveiled the HoverAir Versa, combining their existing aerial expertise with the convenience of a pocket camera. At its core, the Versa is a high-end stabilized pocket gimbal camera, like the DJI Osmo, but it can magnetically snap onto a drone body and transform into a cinematic selfie drone. It's designed to tackle two different product categories simultaneously, but with the same goal of making it as easy as possible to film yourself (or others).

The Versa is actually HoverAir's first-ever pocket camera. It features a three-axis gimbal, which means it can adjust for tilt, yawn, and pitch to make sure your footage turns out stable. Compared to other options on the market, no pocket camera offers more than two-axis stabilization. It has a rotating screen and the accompanying controls for the camera, along with RGB accent lighting that also works as a status indicator. Overall, it looks like a pretty run-of-the-mill, well-made pocket camera.

But the magic happens when you bring out the wings. A small, foldable drone body can magnetically attach to the camera unit via pogo pins located at the back of the device. Once connected, you just unfold the wings, gently tap the top, and it takes off right from your palm. There is no external controller needed because the device uses AI to track and follow you automatically. It has 10+ intelligent modes that can film you from any direction with AI-assisted framing, along with a neat 360° feature as well.

In this mode, called 3D Worlds, the drone flies around to snap pictures of the scene from different angles and composites them into a single 360° scene that can be explored and shared later. Technically, this would be the third audience the Versa is trying to cater to — the Insta360 crowd, though that's real-time 360° video recording that you can also generously manipulate in post, so not exactly comparable. Still, it's a neat trick, and we'll have to see how well HoverAir implements it.

We don't have a price or release date; just a bunch of teasers so far that say it's coming soon. As such, specs are also up in the air, but the company is touting class-leading performance with the best dynamic range in the category. From the promotional material, we can infer that it has a large lens, and the drone body looks very compact. If HoverAir's previous selfie drones are anything to go by, the Versa could have support for up to 8K video in 10-bit Log or HLG, along with rapid flying speeds of up to 45 km/h.

The test footage on HoverAir's website and the video we attached above look really impressive. The ingenuity of the concept warrants both excitement and skepticism, but it's undeniable that the Versa kind of feels magical. Nothing like it exists in the market today, and if the company can already ship excellent selfie drones like the X1 series, and pocket cameras aren't exactly rocket science, it stands to reason that harmonizing the two together is the only challenge for the Versa.

K3 Scout surveillance drones used by the UK’s Royal Navy contain components that have been secretly transmitting data to China, according to reports. The Telegraph’s revelations suggest that the sea drones include a camera component that would send the data to China. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says that it has removed all internet connectivity from the cameras after discovering the breach. The transmitted data was also limited in scope, insists the MoD, which characterized the transmissions as “heartbeat communications” to simply verify the device is online and working normally.

Western governments have been seeking to minimize the ingress of Chinese technology into sensitive and critical infrastructure for some years now. The pushback started with investigations into rising telecom brands like Huawei and ZTE, which became very successful with their cheap and efficient equipment in the West.

More recently, we have seen pushback affecting Chinese drone companies, as the utility and value of drones have become incredibly clear in the Russia – Ukraine war. Western allies obviously don’t want drones with potential Chinese backdoors, killswitches, or so on inside them. However, even manufacturers in China’s fiercest foe, Taiwan, recently admitted that its drone-making operations were still dependent on Chinese components.

Returning to the topic of drones, specifically, the sea drones in the Telegraph story were reportedly acquired by a major British defense contractor, Kraken Technology Group. The same company “sourced the cameras from a third party who had given assurances about their security,” says the newspaper. But an unnamed Telegraph source told the paper that this security lapse was a “major failure,” meaning that confidence in the platform has been lost. It even goes on to say that there are concerns that these drones could have snooped on highly sensitive special military forces meetings, even when switched off.

An MoD spokesperson told The Telegraph that the issues with the Chinese cameras were identified during a routine cyber vulnerability assessment. That seems like evidence of good practice, showing proactive testing and assurance procedures are in place. Moreover, the investigation “found no evidence of MoD data or systems being accessed, compromised or transmitted externally.” That didn’t stop The Telegraph or shadow (opposition party) ministers from being “furious” about the revelations, though.

The K3 Scout drone can carry a 600kg payload at sea for 30 days continuously. The Royal Marines have been using a £12 million fleet of these drones since March and offered to deploy them to secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Special Operations Command also has K3 Scout drones, and these drones have been used by allies in NATO trials in the Baltic Sea.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving to ban drones with LiDAR obstacle-avoidance features, a move that would remove a number of popular consumer drones from US shelves. In a public notice published in the Federal Register on August 3 (DA 26-758), the agency proposed retroactively banning the import and sale of any foreign-made drone on its Covered List that “contains or integrates” a LiDAR sensor, categorizing the technology under a broad “military-grade” umbrella.

The proposal builds on a ban the FCC set in motion late last year. On December 22, 2025, the agency added all foreign-made drones and their critical components to its Covered List — a roster of communications equipment that a U.S. national-security authority has determined poses an unacceptable risk. The listing blocked any new foreign drone model from receiving the FCC authorization it needed to be sold in the U.S., effectively banning sales of new models.

However, models that had already cleared authorization before the listing could continue to be imported and sold. The new DA 26-758 proposal seeks to retroactively strip sales clearance from previously approved drone models that ”escaped” the initial ban, starting with those it deems military-grade. The proposal is open for public comment until September 2, 2026, and if adopted as written, the ban on imports and sales would take effect roughly 180 days after publication.

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that uses laser pulses to measure exact distances and build precise 3D maps of objects and environments. Drones, delivery bots, and self-driving cars all rely on it for obstacle avoidance. A ban would mean that popular consumer models such as DJI's Air 3S and Mini 5 Pro — both of which use LiDAR for obstacle detection — would no longer be available for sale in the US. The proposal would not affect existing owners, who could keep flying the drones they already have, but as DJI has warned, those owners could find official spare parts increasingly hard, or eventually impossible, to source over time.

Under the FCC's broad ”military-grade” classification, the ban would also reach drones that carry thermal imaging sensors, can dispense agricultural sprays (”economic poison” in the notice's language), weigh 55 pounds or more, include docking stations, integrate a defense article, or operate in coordinated swarms — a category the FCC defines widely enough to include synchronized drone light shows. U.S.-made drones and other drones not on the Covered List are not touched by the ban, regardless of whether they carry any of these features.

The FCC frames the move purely as a national security issue, leaning on an executive-branch determination that foreign-made drones pose an “unacceptable risk.” It tentatively concludes that the economic hit would be minor, as military-grade models are a small minority in a market dominated by recreational fliers. Conversely, the notice also details the billions that domestic drone makers like Skydio, which has committed $3.5 billion to US manufacturing, have raised since the original ban.

DJI, one of the manufacturers affected by the ban, has argued that the “military-grade” label is a category error, sweeping in civilian tools that first responders, farmers, and hobbyists rely on. Its core objection lands on the LiDAR clause, specifically arguing that the technology is a safety feature, not a weapon. DJI had earlier sued the FCC to overturn the December ban, claiming the agency exceeded its statutory authority.

A medevac flight from Roswell Air Center (ROW), New Mexico, to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport (SRR) crossed into an area where there were “GPS jamming activities” by the U.S. military — minutes later, it crashed into a mountain as it was on final approach to its destination. According to the NTSB’s Preliminary Report [PDF], the crew, alongside several other aircraft, experienced issues with their navigation system consistent with the effects of GPS jamming, as reported by Wired.

While the GPS interference seemingly did not directly cause the crash, it’s apparent that it was the first domino in a chain of events that led to the fatal accident. This raises urgent questions about GPS jamming as reported incidents of GPS interference mount across the world.

An uneventful departure

The preliminary report said that it was a dark, moonless night, meaning it would be difficult for anyone to fly visually. That’s because the dark sky and ground would make it difficult to locate the horizon and could quickly lead to spatial disorientation. The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air propeller plane took off from its base at Roswell Air Center (ROW), New Mexico, at around 11:52 pm. As it was climbing to altitude at 11:54 pm, the pilots requested and received an instrument flight rules (IFR) clearance from Albuquerque Center, the air route traffic control center in charge of the area.

This switch meant that the pilots would now primarily fly the plane using instruments in the cockpit instead of looking outside the windows. This is a normal procedure and is what most passenger airliners use during operations. Furthermore, it seems that the pilots have filed for clearance before they took off, as evidenced by their “as filed” clearance to SRR.

First sign of trouble

At around 12 midnight, Albuquerque Center told the flight crew that they were 1,000 feet above their assigned altitude. The pilots then said they were correcting their altitude, but they also mentioned that they’ve lost GPS capability. From there, they asked for a heading, and they were told to proceed to heading 275 towards SRR. About a minute after this, air traffic control (ATC) told them to proceed to heading 350 to set them up for a landing on runway 24 at SRR.

Around five minutes after this radio communication, ATC called the military and asked them to stop their GPS jamming activities in the meantime. At 12:07 am, the NTSB said that the Beechcraft’s GPS instruments resumed regular recording. The pilots then called Albuquerque Center a minute after this, saying that they had “a visual on Ruidoso,” the town nearest to SRR, and that they were transitioning to visual flight rules (VFR). This meant that they were moving away from the direct control of the ATC and would navigate and fly using visual cues.

A mountain hiding under a moonless night

As the pilots turned towards their final destination, they had a recorded altitude of 9,820 feet on their instruments. But what the pilots couldn’t see was that the Capitan Mountains, which rise to more than 10,000 feet, stood between them and SRR.

The conditions meant that there was no available illumination to light the ground. It is still unknown what happened next or what the pilots saw (or didn’t see), but the preliminary report says the last recorded information saw the plane climbing from 9,400 feet to 9,823 feet at a ground speed of 150 knots (172 mph). It impacted terrain at about 9,950 feet — some 230 feet below the Capitan Mountains Summit Radio Facility.

Visual illusion compounded by a high-stress situation

Although the weather was clear at the time of the accident, the fact that it was a dark night meant that the pilots were more susceptible to visual illusions. As the aircraft descended, they were likely using the lights of Ruidoso to guide them toward SRR.

Because they could not see that the Capitan Mountains were still between them and their destination, they likely started their descent too early. As soon as the aircraft went below the peak, they would’ve lost visual with the town, and it seemed that the pilots attempted to climb when they realized that there was a massive obstacle in front of them. Unfortunately, it seems that their efforts were too late, especially at their speeds, resulting in a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accident.

This was compounded by a high workload and high-stress situation. Landings and take-offs, in normal situations, are already quite hectic in the cockpit, which is why pilots practice the sterile cockpit rule, which avoids extraneous communications, at times like these. The loss of GPS signals also added to their stress, as they initially planned for an RNAV approach towards SRR. While this generally uses a combination of radio signals, it seems that their system primarily relied on GPS, which was inoperative at that time.

Aside from this, ATC also had a higher workload than usual, as they were assisting three other aircraft in the area that have been affected by the military operations. Although the military had temporarily ceased their activities, it seems that the pilots were not aware of this and elected to proceed visually instead of relying on either RNAV or the alternative instrument landing system (ILS).

We still don’t have the NTSB’s final report, so we cannot definitely say what the ultimate cause of the crash. But it seems that if the military wasn’t running a GPS jamming exercise at that time, the flight would have used RNAV from departure all the way to SRR, instead of relying on radar vectors and, ultimately, VFR.

Military activities affecting civilian flights

This isn’t the first time that military activities have been linked to a crash in the U.S in recent history. Just last year, a tragedy unfolded at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when a regional jet carrying 64 passengers and crew collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on an exercise, resulting in 67 casualties. GPS jamming is also a frequent occurrence in several hotspots in the world, like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even the South China Sea, which has affected airliners.

But aside from civilian airliners, many drones, especially those used for long-range attacks, also use GPS. While militaries have been developing new technologies like microwaves and lasers to shoot down these drones, one of the most cost-effective technologies that is readily available today is GPS jamming. It’s probably because of this that Russia has started putting magnetic compasses on some of their drones to help with navigation.

Even though GPS jamming might sound alarming, pilots have been flying around the world for decades, even before it came into widespread use. These include VOR (VHF Omnidirectional Range) beacons that send out signals unaffected by GPS jamming to help pilots determine where they are, ILS, which safely guides pilots towards a runway up to a certain distance, and more.

However, it seems that the sudden loss of GPS caught the pilots of the Beechcraft unaware. This, combined with the lack of visual references, a sudden change of plans from RNAV to ILS approach, and the decision to fly visually, probably led to the crash. The military’s GPS jamming exercise didn’t directly cause the crash, but it was likely the first event in the “Swiss cheese” model that ultimately caused the accident.

Drone flyovers of Elon Musk’s new Advanced Technology Chip Fab (ATCF) in Texas have been shared on social media. The videos and photos come courtesy of flight instructor and drone videographer Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer), who regularly documents the progress of Giga Texas and Starbase projects. Considering that the fab was only announced on March 21 this year, groundwork has been brisk, and in a follow-up post, Tegtmeyer states progress has “hit another gear.”

In the above post, the all-things-space enthusiast notes that the ATCF already appears to be very well defined. “GeoPiers are at work on the part of the foundation that has had gravel mix placed on the top soil and more work grading on the south end,” he explains.

A few days later, there was an update with progress clearly accelerating, according to Tegtmeyer. As well as commenting on the shape of the facility becoming ever clearer and construction materials continuing to be stockpiled, there are other important signs of progress. Specifically, “4 new permits were filed in the past few days for the large trailer complex that houses the general contractors and the temporary Tesla offices for the new facility,” noted the enthusiast. “[It is] a great sign that things are progressing rapidly behind the scenes to fit out the facility when construction progresses far enough to allow for equipment installation.”

Importantly, Tegtmeyer reminds his followers that the ATCF is not the Terafab that will be built ~ 100 miles or so to the East in Grimes County, Texas. Rather, the ATCF is the equally vital but “smaller development facility that is the first part of the overall AI Chip development program.”

The ATCF is a joint Tesla–SpaceX facility, and is a keystone for the Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI accelerator chips to come. It is expected that chips from the ATCF will combine logic, memory, and advanced packaging under one roof. Projects spawned from here are destined to support Tesla cars and Robotaxis, Optimus robots, and upcoming Earth-orbiting AI data centers.

That’s distinct from the much larger, multi-phase, vertically integrated, 1TW/year Terafab megaproject, which will see collabs between Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and Intel. It has massive AI computer production ambitions to feed terrestrial and space-based AI systems. We are still awaiting evidence that the Terafab has moved beyond the pre-construction phase.

If there were any doubt about the seriousness of Musk's semiconductor design and fabrication ambitions in these and other progress reports, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet recently confirmed talks with Musk had taken place about building one of the largest chip manufacturing operations ever attempted. SpaceX has also already filed for a $55 billion facility in Grimes County, Texas, with potential expansion costs reaching $119 billion, and phase one potentially beginning before the end of the year. Meanwhile, it is good to see the rapid progress of the smaller ATCF.

The drone arms race is set to enter U.S. schools with Mithril Defense’s Campus Guardian Angel drones in at least nine schools across three states before the year is out. The Washington Post reports that the pilot program will be tested in Florida, Georgia, and Colorado schools with and without resource officers on campus. Securely siloed drones will be situated in key areas around campus, triggered by teachers via app or panic button, then fly to combat gun-toting attackers with a mix of strobes, sirens, pepper spray, and a 60 mph attacker-ramming capability.

If this is a successful initiative, it could go some way to lift the terrible specter of gun violence overshadowing U.S. students. The Washington Post notes that since Columbine in 1999, almost 400,000 students have experienced gun violence at school.

The Campus Guardian Angel drone rollout will be quite expensive. For example, the five schools in Georgia set to adopt drone defense will get $500,000 in backing to run the pilot program. However, politicians and legislators in that state appear to have passed the budget with ease.

This is how the Campus Guardian Angel drone system is designed to work:

• Drones are sited at secure locations around the campus,
• A teacher will trigger the drone deployment using an app or panic button,
• Remote pilots take control and distract, deter, and disable aggressors using a mix of strobes, sirens, pepper gel, and 60‑mph impacts,
• Drone system reaction speed is crucial.

Mithril Defense says that the Campus Guardian Angel drones can react and reach a shooter as quickly as 15 seconds. Justin Marston, Mithril’s founder and CEO, made a few other bold claims regarding his drone system’s reaction speed. For example, Marston said a drone like the Guardian Angel ‘might’ve saved lives in Uvalde.’ That’s a direct reference to the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed in 2022.

The drone defense firm's CEO underlined that “the first 120 seconds are incredibly critical, because that’s when most of the shooting happens.” That implies that he thinks Campus Guardian Angel drones could be successfully deployed within that very narrow time window. But Uvalde was quite unusual, as responding law enforcement seemed paralyzed, waiting over an hour to enter the classroom.

These school-based drone systems are not without their critics. Some say that the funds may be better spent on prevention than cure. Even Mithril’s founder and CEO’s opinion seems to be that if these drones aren’t prompted into action within two minutes, they aren’t living up to their promise.

There is also the concern that drones could misidentify students or protection officers when controllers are under pressure. Others say that military-style drone systems aren’t appropriate for schools, and will cost a lot more than simple measures and routines regarding locked doors.

With the three states proceeding with pilot programs this year, we may see the true value and capabilities of the Campus Guardian Angel drones. If these drone-protected schools don’t suffer any terrible shooting incidents, then it may be claimed that the drones are at least a deterrent.

A Pro-Ukraine group claims it helped facilitate a cyberattack on a Russian BARS drone defense system near Moscow, resulting in the shooting down of an advanced Russian fighter jet. The Su-57 stealth fighter crashed spectacularly “during a routine training mission in the Moscow region on Thursday,” say reports published by Russian state media. The pilot ejected safely, and the jet smashed into an uninhabited area. However, what the Russians are characterizing as an accident due to “a technical malfunction,” some Ukrainian open-source intelligence (OSINT) agencies are claiming as successful sabotage.

Russian accident or Ukrainian scalp?

Above you can see that InformNapalm, a well‑known Ukrainian volunteer intelligence collective, claims that the Su-57 was “shot down” by the Russian ‘BARS Moscow’ air defense system. That would indeed be a kind of technical malfunction, as the Russians admit, but InformNapalm says that Ukrainian cyber specialists turned Moscow’s anti-drone shield against the Russian jet. Specifically, in this instance, the Russian anti-drone system shot down the confirmed crashed Su-57 stealth fighter.

The explosive-if-true claim from Ukrainian OSINT comes with a background story. InformNapalm says that it shared “secret documents from the Russian manufacturer of components for this aircraft's systems” last year. These were acquired and leaked by HUMINT and CYBINT operations backed by Ukrainian intelligence services. Additionally, the Ukrainians mounted a combined cognitive and cyber influence operation that affected the operation of the BARS Moscow air defense unit. The purported result was that the drone defense unit set up around Moscow in June shot down the Su-57.

InformNapalm attempts to add veracity to its claims by sharing some less sensitive but still relevant evidence of espionage. The video embedded in the Tweet (above) is purported to be footage from a training range where Russia's BARS Moscow crews were in training to counter Ukraine’s long-range drones. There’s also an intelligence brief excerpt mentioning Russian hardware, software, combat algorithms, and system vulnerabilities.

Russia is thought to only have a handful of these advanced Su-57 aircraft, which can launch Kh-59 and Kh-69 missiles, so efforts put into sabotaging them are high among Ukrainian military priorities. Ukraine has previously targeted and claimed successful strikes against Su-57s sitting on the ground at Akhtubinsk airfield (2024), and Shagol airfield (May this year).

Lockheed Martin has unveiled a counter-drone system that can “neutralize up to 50 enemy drones in a single mission.” The new Morfius X-Rotor is a ground-launched one-to-many drone-kill system designed to be sent up to neutralize large enemy drone swarms. This reusable and field‑recoverable drone utilizes a high‑power microwave to disable drones without explosives, reducing collateral damage. It boasts a “significantly low cost per kill.”

The video shared on social media looks impressive, with a trio of Morfius X-Rotor drones sent into the skies, the video of the target acquisition HUD, and then several microwave blasts. We don’t know whether the video contains any live-action test footage or is just a rendered animation.

The U.S. defense tech company notes that swarms of hostile drones are fast becoming the biggest threat to allied forces on today's battlefields, and this is why the Morfius X-Rotor was created. It also fits into the U.S. Department of War's 2025-2028 Rapid Response Counter-UAS Roadmap.

Lockheed claims the Morfius X-Rotor is also remarkable for being “the only ground-launched, field-reusable airborne HPM system capable of delivering more than 50 drone kills per flight using any command and control system and no dependence on fire control radars.” So, it doesn’t need dedicated radar or guidance sensors to acquire and take down targets, which could be a winning quality in heavy EW environments.

Another feather in this one-to-many drone-kill system’s cap is that it is built on a proven platform of Morfius variants which have been flying since 2017, with recent field tests taking place across several U.S. states. A Lockheed VP sums up that what we see in the video demo represents “a new benchmark for counter-drone capability - delivering a high kill rate while keeping the cost per kill low.”

We have reported on microwave anti-drone and weaponry systems before. Among the former was the ground vehicle-based Epirus Leonidas system, which "neutralized 61-of-61 drones" during a recent live fire trial in Indiana last year. We've also reported on an incredibly powerful 20-gigawatt microwave weapon designed in China, dubbed the TPG1000C, and described as “Starlink’s worst nightmare.”

Researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois have built a drone that rotates so fast that it is cloaked by motion blur. The new Phantom Twist drone spins at 25 times per second, which, thanks to a quirk of human vision, makes it appear like a faint smudge in the air. The video below shows it off to great effect, but I hope they can do something about the whiny noise.

The first demonstration of the Phantom Twist took place as part of a Robotics: Science and Systems 2026 presentation on Thursday. “Most efforts to hide drones focus on making them look like their surroundings,” said Northwestern’s Michael Rubenstein, who led the work. “Instead, we asked whether we could design the drone itself around the way humans perceive motion. This idea of low visibility through persistent motion is something few people have explored.”

The stationary photo of the Phantom Twist reveals a rather unique drone design, far removed from the now traditional quadcopter. It has just one motor and one propeller, and while the propeller spins in one direction, and the rest of the drone spins in the opposite direction, explains the Northwestern University blog.

AI was used to refine the design

The researchers tasked a computational model to generate roughly 20,000 drone configurations capable of stable flight. Subsequently, they applied AI and other optimization algorithms to repeatedly rearrange the drones’ major components, including a motor, propeller, circuit board, counterweight and batteries.

After narrowing down the candidates to around 500, the engineers superimposed simulated drones in flight over a hundred real-world backgrounds. A perception model then whittled down the designs based on their visibility scores. According to Rubenstein this entire process was automated, and only “when we were confident that a drone met all our criteria, we built it.” The demonstrated Phantom Twist drone is apparently “10 times less visually perceptible than a conventional quadcopter” according to the researcher’s visibility metrics.

Yes, the team knows that the Phantom Twist drone is rather noisy, and the visual impact of its wires and support rods could be reduced. Thus, work is planned to utilize more transparent materials and / or quieter propulsion systems in upcoming revisions.

Ukraine, which is fighting a years-long war of attrition against Russian aggression, has seen a lot of combat innovations, especially in drone warfare. But even as modern technologies like Starlink-powered long-range drones and jam-proof fiber optic drones enter the battlefield, troops on both sides are also relying on their own ingenuity and deploying “field upgrades” on their equipment. Just like during the Second World War, when some American tankers welded thick metal plates to increase the armor on their vehicles to counter the feared German Panzers, the Defence Blog reports that Russians are crudely installing $2 magnetic compasses on some Molniya drones to combat electronic warfare.

The Molniya is a cheap, medium-range drone that relies on the open-source ExpressLRS radio control system, which lets operators control it from a potential maximum range of up to 62 miles (100 kilometers). Some versions also used Starlink connections to combat the jamming efforts of Ukrainian electronic warfare units, but Ukraine’s requirement to register Starlink units in the country before they can be used has supposedly made this strategy unviable.

The drone can also be equipped with a fiber optic cable, which renders it impervious to any sort of electronic interference. Although this limits the potential range of the Molniya to just 18 miles (30 kilometers), it allows the drone to be more effective as it reduces the chances that the operator will lose control of the unit.

GPS jamming is also a common occurrence in Ukrainian airspace. This means that drone operators could potentially get lost on their way to their targets. Because of this, many frontline Russian units have started crudely installing magnetic compasses on their drones. This navigation tool is typically installed just below the FPV camera, allowing the operator to glance down to confirm their bearings. When combined with other telemetry data, the drone pilot could locate their relative location even without GPS.

One leaked image shows that the compass is just attached to the panel near the FPV camera with five Philips screws, suggesting that this isn’t a factory modification. Some people are mocking the development of this “add-on,” saying that it’s a step backward for the supposedly “advanced” Russian arsenal. But no matter how rough and primitive it looks, the fact that it helps the Russians achieve their missions means that it’s still a cheap, effective, and rather deadly modification.

A micro-drone designed to locate and eradicate mosquitoes has passed an important milestone. Tornyol Systems shared a video where the eponymous autonomous drone chalked up its first live air-to-air kill. For some reason (perhaps demonstration visibility), the 40g (1.4 ounce) drone’s first confirmed kill on video features a moth. Tornyol boldly claims that the demo shows a significant stride has been made “towards completely eradicating mosquitoes.”

Tornyol Systems co-founder Alex Toussaint shared the above Tweet, congratulating the engineering team that has worked alongside him on the project. On the company website, there is a mosquito-hostile manifesto laid out, which provides insight into the company’s primary drone development goal.

“Mosquitoes are one of humanity's oldest and worst enemies. They kill more than 700,000 people each year — more than all current wars,” according to the firm’s mission statement. “More than 700 million people contract a mosquito-borne disease each year. They impact many countries, including the West, with thousands of cases of West Nile Virus in the US alone.” It aims to use technology, including this “small, inexpensive, and yet very fast” micro-drone, to “completely eradicate mosquitoes from areas where humans live.”

The underlying motivation of Tornyol Systems first became apparent back at Hackaday Supercon 2024 when Toussaint shared a presentation about How to Detect (and Kill) Mosquitoes With Off-the-Shelf Electronics.

Tornyol's technology

Since those initial presentations, it looks like the tech has been significantly refined and miniaturized. Currently, the platform is dependent on the LeSonar2 phased array sonar base station with 380 smartphone microphones and an Artix-7 FPGA to map the world in 3D.

This feeds the drone enough information to measure 0.1 mm movements and identify mosquitoes through their unique wingbeat signature. The micro-drone is sent commands by a PC, which also leverages “car park assist sensors, and some clever DSP” to seek and kill mozzies up to 8m (~26 feet) away.

We’ve previously reported on ground-based AI-enhanced mosquito zappers, but this is the first time we’ve seen an air-to-air solution. Tornyol says that it is rolling out deployment on embedded hardware “in the next few weeks.” I guess that's removing the need for a PC.

U.S. residents interested in purchasing an autonomous Tornyol drone and base station are being asked to stump up a refundable $100 deposit. Then, there are two payment plans available. Choose a $50-a-month subscription or an “own it forever” $1,100 one-time fee.

Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck the Gazprom Neft oil refinery in Omsk, Siberia, on July 6 after flying roughly 2,500 km over more than 12 hours, halting operations at Russia's largest gasoline producer, according to a report from UK pub The Telegraph. It was the longest-range Ukrainian drone strike of the war, carried out by an aircraft built around a plywood load-bearing structure, foam wings, and a two-cylinder piston engine, at an estimated cost of $55,000 per unit.

Despite its lightweight structure, the drone managed to cause some pretty severe damage, setting fire to the CDU-10 crude distillation unit per Reuters, which handles 24,580 metric tons of crude per day and accounts for around 38% of the plant's processing capacity. A second unit, CDU-11, responsible for a further 37%, was shut down after network links vital to its operation were damaged. The refinery, which processed 22 million metric tons of crude (about 440,000 barrels per day) in 2024, stopped selling gasoline and diesel on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange the following day.

The FP-1, built by Kyiv-based Fire Point, is engineered not for sophistication or as cutting-edge drone tech, but for mass production. The airframe uses plywood structural elements and foam wings skinned in fiberglass or carbon fiber, with a twin-boom layout, a roughly five-meter wingspan, and no landing gear. A solid rocket booster launches it from a fixed platform or a truck, and a two-cylinder engine driving a propeller carries it the rest of the way.

The drone's original design range was 1,600 km with a warhead of up to 60 kg. At the Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris last month, Fire Point showed an upgraded FP-1 with an additional fuel tank integrated into the wing, extending its range to 2,700 km. That variant put Omsk, and most of Russia's refining capacity, within reach. The Telegraph reported that the drones used in the strike were lightened, with lengthened wingspans and enlarged fuel tanks, and that Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilerman said Ukrainian planners spent more than a week plotting a route around Russian air defenses. Navigation relies on a purpose-built algorithm designed to resist GPS spoofing, with inertial and satellite guidance layered together.

Fire Point produces around 100 FP-1s per day, and the aircraft now accounts for roughly 60% of Ukraine's deep strikes inside Russia, according to company CEO Iryna Terekh. Each drone costs less than a single interceptor missile fired by the multimillion-dollar S-400 and Pantsir batteries tasked with stopping it, and Russia simply can't field enough of those systems to cover a country spanning 11 time zones.

This design takes advantage of Russia's air defense network, which was designed to detect fast, high-flying jets and ballistic missiles, not slow, low-altitude aircraft with small radar signatures. Moscow scrambled Su-57 stealth fighters against the Omsk raid, but several drones still got through. Kyle Glen, an open-source investigator, told The Telegraph that Russia appears to concentrate its defenses around Moscow and St. Petersburg, leaving "almost nothing behind it to stop them" once drones penetrate the outer layer.

Ukraine's General Staff recorded 172 deep strikes last month, up from 85 in February, and Omsk was the sixth major Russian refinery forced to fully or partially shut down since the start of June. Last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a new Fire Point drone can reach targets at 3,000 km, and the company's FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile, carrying a 1,150 kg warhead over the same distance, has begun striking Russian weapons facilities as air defenses thin out.

Quantum Systems Group reckons it has broken the flight speed record for an electric drone. During internal testing last month, the Munich-based firm recorded its Apex Recordhunter drone hitting a top speed of 699 km/h (434 mph) in straight and level flight. That incredible result convincingly outpaces the current world record holder with a recorded top speed of 657.59 km/h (409 mph). However, a Guinness World Record entry is pending, with a formal attempt to crack that achievement expected to take place in the coming weeks, reports ComputerBase (machine translation).

According to the official press release, the Apex Recordhunter drone was developed over the last year and serves as a technology demonstrator for next-gen electrically powered drones. Tellingly, Ukrainian engineers are also working on this project under the auspices of WIY Drones, a branch of Quantum Systems. It will also be attempting record-breaking speed challenges in Ukraine, as the Apex Recordhunter is being assessed for future interceptor drone programs.

Specifically, the WIY Drones plans include record attempts to break speed records for an FPV interceptor drone carrying a 0.5 kg payload, and for an anti-aircraft class FPV interceptor drone. These could well become the Ukrainian answer to the increasingly fast and maneuverable aerial threats that the Russians are sending over the border.

So, we might have a flurry of new drone speed records on the way, and it wouldn’t be a great surprise if the Apex Recordhunter drone pushes past the 700 km/h (435 mph) milestone.

Kiwi speed challengers

The Europeans aren’t the only ‘Recordhunters.’ In May, we reported on another unofficial drone world speed record. Drone builders Aidan and Ben from New Zealand recorded maximum speeds of up to 453 mph (730 km/h) in tests of their Blackbird drone, which leverages exotic sawtooth carbon fiber propeller blades.

Like with the Apex Recordhunter drone, the Blackbird speed record remains unofficial, as they haven’t had a verification that requires a certified independent observer, verified measurement equipment, documentation including a submission, followed by a controlled two-way run.

Batteries that can last decades between recharges or renewals are the stuff of tech enthusiast dreams. However, DARPA’s ‘Rads to Watts’ program could bring forth unrivaled portable power, lasting decades, via the development of a new class of radiovoltaic devices. Morgan State University recently won a $3.37M DARPA contract to advance this tech, and a report by Defense One suggests upcoming nuclear waste-powered batteries could last as long as 30 years and power next-gen drones.

Morgan State now has a considerable sum to keep its researchers employed on a project dubbed SYMPHONEE (Strontium-Yttrium Multi-junction PIN-based High-Density Output Nano-system for Extreme Environments). Radioisotope power sources have been used for quite some time in low-power draw applications such as smoke detectors and space systems for decades. However, the new initiative, led by Morgan State and with team members such as Northrop Grumman, PNNL, Project Omega, ARA, and Widetronix, aims to take the tech into the next generation. More specifically, under the auspices of (and with funds from) the 'Rads to Watts' program, they are aiming to build next‑generation radiovoltaic micro‑power systems for extreme environments.

The proposed next-gen power cells make use of radioisotopes extracted from nuclear waste, especially Strontium‑90. Research partner Project Omega has already made some devices and will build the DARPA prototype. We noticed that it has published a promotional video that highlights sea drones with a 10-year battery life, for example. Coordinated by Morgan State researchers, PNNL labs will handle nuclear materials/testing, Northrop Grumman and ARA will provide AI-driven modeling, with Widetronix designing nuclear micro‑generator radiovoltaic converter architectures.

“Our team is pushing the boundaries of radiovoltaic technology, developing high-power, long-life systems that were not previously achievable,” said Professor Michael Spencer, the technical lead for the project. “By integrating advanced materials, device engineering, and nuclear science, we are laying the foundation for a new generation of persistent power systems for extreme environments.”

With this research, development, and fabrication powerhouse assembled, it is hoped a step change will be achieved to boost radiovoltaic micro‑power system power density. The goal is to be able to power persistent autonomous operations in remote or difficult-to-access environments like space, underwater, and contested regions – for decades. A Northrop Grumman rep emphasized the potential of a ‘persistent power source’ becoming available for “next-generation defense systems.” Project Omega is also interested in developing “persistent underwater security systems” – sea drones.

It is also somewhat positive to imagine that substances long considered to be highly undesirable waste products could end up being strategic assets.

A Lithuanian startup developed an Android app that lets verified users monitor the general area for the acoustic signature of Shahed-type drones used by Russia to strike targets and report their approximate location. According to state broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television, the app uses an embedded algorithm to isolate and analyze targets from environmental noise. It reports a possible detection on a public map. With the app running on enough devices, the system could determine the potential location and direction of these drones and warn both civilians and the military of an impending strike.

Shahed-type drones have been widely employed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is quite effective for its relatively low price compared to other, more advanced missile systems. Ukraine has been taking steps to counter this threat, including requiring users inside the country to register their Starlink units to avoid getting blocked because Russia has been using the service to guide its drones as late as last year. Other nations are experimenting with cost-effective countermeasures, too, including microwave drone swarm killers and man-portable anti-drone laser systems.

What makes these drones deadly is their price — because they’re so cheap, it’s easy for an enemy to launch them en masse and overwhelm defenses. However, if you can catch them far from their targets, they’re quite vulnerable (at least for the older propeller-driven models); even gunners armed with a shotgun or assault rifle seated inside a 50-year-old single-propeller trainer aircraft can reliably shoot them down.

The biggest issue for air defense systems is that these drones are quite small and made of lightweight materials, which gives them a relatively low radar cross-section (RCS). A Shahed-type drone usually measures around eight to 12 feet in length and has a wingspan of around eight feet. Although they could be detected by standard radar systems, their speed and size mean that the radar receiver would also pick up a lot of other clutter, such as birds, making it hard to distinguish relevant targets from background noise. These characteristics, combined with their low flight cruising altitude, mean that ground-based radars have trouble picking them up unless they’re flying relatively close.

However, their low flight path also means that they could easily be heard by observers on the ground. So, if enough people can detect their aural signature and report it to a central database, defense forces could mobilize and engage these threats while they’re still distant from their targets and away from population centers. This is similar to the acoustic mirrors and acoustic locators that militaries used in World War I before the advent of radar, wherein they built massive concrete dishes aimed upward, or used smaller, more portable metal horn arrays, crewed by trained personnel listening in to detect the low-frequency sound coming from aircraft piston engines from far away.

We expect this to be far more accurate, though, because it uses advanced algorithms and thousands of detectors operated by verified users. While using this system alone is probably not enough to accurately detect these drones, pairing it with modern radar systems could make the radar operators’ job far easier, as they would have another data source to confirm whether they’re actually seeing drones on their screens or just a flock of birds.

Chinese defense supplier Harbin Xinguang Optic-Electronics Technology demo’d two man-portable anti-drone lasers at a Beijing arms expo this week, putting backpack-scale directed-energy hardware alongside the mounted platforms that have so far dominated the space. The Lijian II and Lijian III, shown at the Defence Information Equipment & Technology Exhibition 2026 that opened Tuesday, weigh 30kg (66 pounds) and 25kg (55 pounds), draw around 2 kW, and cost about 2 million yuan (US$295,000) each, according to the South China Morning Post. It also uses AI for targeting.

Each portable unit splits into a laser emitter, an air cooler, and a handheld control terminal, light enough for one or two soldiers to carry. The emitter accounts for about 15kg, and the cooling system for roughly 10kg. Both models have a pitch angle above 90 degrees and reach about 500 meters (1,640 feet). The Lijian III burns through a drone in 4 seconds and needs under 5 seconds to cool before firing again, the company said.

The same line includes a fixed-position model, the Lijian-10G, that draws around 10 kW and reaches 1,200 meters (3,900 feet), but requires a large liquid-cooled box rather than a backpack. Harbin Xinguang said the portable units are "easier to operate and can be quickly deployed and recovered," in comments from a product promoter as reported by SCMP.

Those weight savings, of course, come out of the overall power budget of the laser. At roughly 2 kW, the portable Lijian models sit below the 3 kW-class NI-L3K counter-drone lasers that China showed at DSA 21026 in Malaysia, and far below the heavier directed-energy systems built elsewhere. The U.S. Army is currently testing a vehicle-mounted 20kW LOCUST system on the Oshkosh JLTV platform, and Israel's 100kW Iron Beam became the first high-power laser to enter service late last year. Obviously, those trade portability for the wattage needed to engage longer-range targets.

A 2 kW suits small, low, and slow targets at close range, with a much more favorable cost per shot. Burning down a quadcopter or FPV drone using a laser consumes energy rather than shoulder-fired munitions, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per round. Zhao said the core technology reached maturity in 2023, as the war in Ukraine reshaped thinking around drone warfare.

Rather troubling is the fact that the Lijian series uses AI to identify targets and engage drones that enter its range, cued by external sensors such as radar. Harbin Xinguang said the weapons have already been placed at some Chinese facilities, including military airfields, and that it’s seeking further orders through the exhibition.

All the specifications come from the manufacturer's exhibition materials and a company representative and haven’t been independently tested.

A watershed moment occurred on the battlefields of Ukraine in 2024 that we are only just hearing about today: the use of fully autonomous drones to kill humans. Ten fully autonomous quadcopter drones were sent to the front line by Ukraine with their AI-controlled ‘Terminator Mode’ engaged. “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead,” a drone maker, Alexander Kokhanovskyy, told New Scientist at a press event hosted by the Ukrainian embassy. Human-piloted drones were later sent to recce the target area, and the machine-slain victims were concluded to include “a couple of soldiers, one truck.”

The New Scientist interview provides the most compelling evidence yet that humans have been killed at the sole discretion of an AI. This wasn’t an accident of any kind, or an AI gone rogue; the 10 drones were sent to the front line purposely switched to an autonomous mode to search for and intercept targets. Significantly, “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed,” explained Kokhanovskyy.

So, human decision-making and judgment were removed for what is being characterized in the source report as a one-off test mission. That we are only hearing about it two years after the fact perhaps reflects on the gravity of engaging the Terminator Mode of the drones for (perhaps) the first time in an actual battle.

A Rubicon moment for modern warfare?

As the source notes, there is no official ban on using autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. However, last year the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, called for this red line to be drawn. The argument is that removing human judgment from warfare risks human rights. Moreover, at this stage of the development of this technology, AI-driven systems are frequently in the news for the mistakes they make.

Interestingly, Ukraine actually has a ban on fully autonomous final-stage targeting of humans by its drones. Other officials at the press conference where Kokhanovskyy spoke indicated that government decision-makers were in talks with defense companies about flexing the rules. However, it is likely not the first/only country to have crossed the Rubicon and allowed AI drones to inflict casualties on enemy soldiers.

Academics speaking to the New Scientist offered some interesting angles on the news of Terminator Mode-engaged drones being let loose on the battlefield. One described the news as horrendous and a theft of human dignity. Another concluded that the 2024 AI-drone attack near the cities of Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar must have demonstrated that it is better to keep humans in the loop for military effectiveness.

We are halfway through 2026, and while we aren’t flying across gleaming neon cityscapes in jet-powered cars, birds have been discovered feathering their nests with optical fiber. It definitely isn’t the tech utopia we dreamed about, but the birds might have been colder without this detritus of war. Moreover, our feathered friends are tidying up the miles of fiber waste precipitated by drone warfare, at least a little bit, while making use of what is likely an excellent thermal insulator.

Click 'See more' to see the nests.

Example photos of these optical fiber nests were shared on Twitter/X by a Ukrainian civil society leader and anti-corruption advocate, Olena Tregub. She called the carefully woven avian construction an “apocalyptic bird's nest” and credited Oleg Malchenko as the photographer. We can’t say how widespread such nests are, they are the first we’ve seen, but birds can be quite enterprising when nest building and choosing the best materials.

Some background to the finding was given by Tregrub. “A Russian glide bomb knocks down a tree in Donbas,” said the former Ukrainian government official. “From the shattered branches rolls out a tiny bird’s nest. Made of drone fiber-optic cable.”

Imagery showing acres of fields strewn with wisps of optical fiber are one of the sad signatures of the current Russia-Ukraine war. To make no-fuss jam-proof drones both sides have been using optical fiber tethered drones to target their foes.

In October last year we reported on a Ukrainian invention utilizing rotating barbed wire barriers to snag, rip, and disable any fibers left in the wake of drones flying over them. Another example of ingenuity in this David vs. Goliath conflict.

In December, we reported on the tethered drone range of Russian FPVs being significantly boosted by a grey-zone Chinese partnership. This tech collaboration between communist nations resulted in the production of fiber optic spools delivering as much as 65km (~40.4 miles) of tethered range. That was an advance of previously seen Ukrainian tethered drones reaching 42km (~26 miles).

A trilateral security agreement between Australia, the UK, and the U.S. is leading towards the development of undersea drones to help protect their critical undersea cables from Russian sabotage. According to The Telegraph, UK Secretary of State for Defense John Healey says the three nations would work together to build this new technology, which is designed to protect the underwater infrastructure that connects several NATO members to each other.

This move, according to Mr. Healey, would “rapidly give our forces the very most advanced battlefield technology as together we produce a range of cutting-edge sensors and weapons systems for undersea drones.” He also added, “This will give us the ability to detect, to deter, and deal with the threats, including our underwater cables and pipelines on which so much of our daily life depends.”

There have been multiple incidents of undersea cables getting severed by cargo ships, which many authorities suspect have been done on purpose. Some examples of this include a couple of cables connecting Finland to Germany and Sweden to Lithuania, multiple undersea cables in the Red Sea that connected Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as one cable that linked Taiwan and the U.S. Furthermore, Russian naval assets have been tracked close to undersea cables, and they’re suspected of mapping out this crucial infrastructure in international waters.

Because of these, many nations are now taking steps to develop weapons and technologies to protect their infrastructure. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which is widely credited as the progenitor of the modern internet, has announced a call for proposals to build an autonomous underwater drone, while the U.S. Navy has signed a deal with an AI firm to develop tech that would allow undersea minesweepers to learn about new and novel threats in days. The UK is also testing a 40-foot drone for seabed warfare and other missions, while startups are working on various prototypes to help protect undersea cables.

Governments are increasingly relying on uncrewed autonomous drones for missions like this. That’s because keeping a navy vessel on station to protect undersea cables that travel for miles can be a costly endeavor. So, undersea drones are a cost-effective alternative for monitoring critical underwater infrastructure, allowing navies to keep their assets free to respond to threats as needed.

A startup just revealed an AI-powered uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) designed to operate at depths of up to 1,640 feet (500 meters) and come with a 22-pound (10-kilogram) payload. According to Marine Technology News, this undersea drone is capable of subsea infrastructure protection, inspections, and intervention. It can operate independently for up to four hours, but can extend indefinitely if tethered to a power source from the surface.

This drone, called the SU10 and built by SYOS, can launch directly from shore, through a crewed mothership, or via a larger uncrewed surface ship built by the same company, with a launch-and-recovery system that’s connected to the company’s autonomous software. This UUV has a rather short battery life of just four hours, which seems like it isn’t enough for patrolling undersea cables. However, the option to operate it connected to a larger vessel on the surface should allow it to extend its mission for as long as necessary. AutoNotion says that the tether doesn’t just carry power — it also has an ultra-slim fiber-optic line that transfers data and a live feed, allowing an operator to control it manually as needed.

While the SU10’s various mission packages and control schemes offer governments and navies multiple capabilities as a standalone unit, it’s actually the company’s proprietary autonomous AAIM software stack and hardware ecosystem that gives it an advantage over other drones. SYOS has already been building uncrewed drones for the air, land, and surface of sea, and AAIM combines the capabilities of all these platforms into a single coordinated unit. This allows for complicated operations and a more dynamic response to whatever situation that an operator may encounter. This is similar to the drone wolf pack that China developed for the PLA, but with capabilities that go beyond the land or the sea.

The SU10 could potentially excel at monitoring and protecting undersea cables. The UUV could potentially loiter underwater while tethered to a surface ship through a long cable. If it detects a disruption, it could immediately alert the operator, who can then take over to verify that information. From there, they could deploy additional resources as necessary (and even do it automatically if they have other SYOS drones on hand). An operation like this is said to be more affordable compared to a similar one that uses crewed vessels, allowing governments, even those with limited budgets, to protect crucial infrastructure.

A drone-loving duo just unofficially broke the drone speed world record when they achieved a maximum speed of 453 mph (730 kph or 394 kts) in a single run — for context, most jetliners cruise at around 550 mph (885 kph or 478 kts). The two drone builders, Aidan and Ben, had previously set a record of 388 mph (626 kph or 338 kts) in December 2025, but were soon defeated by the Bell father-and-son team with the 408 mph Peregreen V4. So, to reclaim their crown, they ordered new propellers for the 'Blackbird' and shared their test run on the Drone Pro Hub YouTube channel.

The team’s secret sauce is their custom carbon fiber propeller blades that were specially handmade for this purpose. These featured high-pitch blades (whose pitch angle is a secret for now) that are angled more towards the direction of flight compared to the blades used in previous attempts. This made them more efficient at high speeds as the props are more parallel to the airflow compared to other propellers with a lower pitch angle. One downside to this, though, is that it delivers less power at low speeds — like when taking off or hovering — so the motors must use more battery power during this (rather short) stage of flight.

Another finesse of the design is evident in the sawtooth leading edges found on the custom blades. These generate vortices on the surface of the blade, helping prevent the air from sliding sideways along the blade instead of flowing straight back off its trailing edge to push the drone forward. They also stabilize the boundary layer, or the thin layer of air that acts like a “lubricant” and reduces drag on the propeller itself. This is crucial as it allows the propellers to have a steeper angle without stalling (if the angle is too steep it acts more like a blender than a propeller).

These changes seemed to have pushed the team’s drone further, as it achieved 393 mph (633 kph or 341 kts) in its first test run. Unfortunately, physics got the better of them, as antenna geometry, the Doppler effect, and signal overload caused the drone to lose connection from the controller at such a high speed. The two did not bother attempting to recover it, as they knew that it was lost for good at these speeds. Furthermore, even if the drone lost connection right in front of the controller, it would have traveled miles at its current speed before it would have crashed.

Thankfully, they still had another drone available for testing and another set of their updated propellers. So, they set out again the following day and continued their tests. It seemed that they only had enough batteries for two test runs, and adverse weather was quickly approaching, so they had to set up quickly and get to flying. It was also a windy day, so they made one downwind flight and one upwind flight, and they just averaged the speeds between the two to get a rather fair result.

It was on the downwind test flight that they achieved their record 453 mph, which is above the 441-mph record that they initially hoped for. However, when they accounted for the 34-mph tailwind, this meant that the drone only had an actual airspeed of 419 mph (674 kph or 364 kts). For their final test run, the duo achieved 397 mph (640 kph or 345 kts) against the wind. They averaged the two runs, getting a figure of 425 mph (685 kph or 369 kts) — this might be a bit short of the more than 434 mph (700 kph or 377 kts) they hoped to achieve, but it still beats the current world record.

Official record next?

Their final drone was damaged a bit when it landed hard after the last test run, as the batteries ran completely flat just a few feet off the ground. Nevertheless, this is still repairable, and the two should hopefully be able to get their drone running again for an official record attempt this time. As for the first drone that crashed, the owner of the land where they were conducting the testing found it completely mangled, but that’s already expected.

If you want to make your own attempt at achieving the drone world speed record, you can actually get guidance through their Drone Pro Hub website. And while they use custom propeller blades made by a professional, you can actually 3D print the body and other components at home with one of the best 3D printers you can buy.

A Turkish researcher just shared details of a sprayable radar absorbent material (RAM) designed to be applied to drones and other small uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). According to the Defense Blog, Yunus İnce and their small defense research firm have been working on the material, called Kürşat 3.0, for more than seven years. İnce shared test footage of the product with the publication, showing the claimed 43dB signal attenuation. This is a greater reduction compared to broadband coatings tested by academic researchers in standardized test conditions. However, the company’s claims must still be validated by a third-party expert to prove that it actually works and makes it harder to detect UAVs.

Drone warfare has exploded in recent years, with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started in 2022, showing how these cheap and tiny gadgets could effectively stop the advance of a multi-million-dollar tank column. Both sides of the conflict have wholeheartedly adopted UAVs as part of their military tactics, and militaries around the globe are devising cost-effective ways of taking down this new threat, like using lasers, microwaves, or good ol’ kinetic energy. Drone operators and manufacturers are not taking these threats lightly, with companies working to make them harder to detect via radar.

Traditional low-observability technologies use a combination of deflection and absorption to reduce their radar signature. This is why the F-117 Nighthawk, the first true operational stealth aircraft, had multiple angular surfaces instead of the usual smooth flowing skin found on fighter jets. Computing advancements allowed engineers to combine aerodynamics and radar deflection, which is why modern stealth aircraft like the B-21 Raider and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are much more contoured compared to the F-117. This signal deflection accounts for the majority of an aircraft’s stealth capabilities, with RAM turning the radar waves that cannot deflect away from the receiver into heat. İnce says that the RAM their team developed uses volcanic basalt and pumice structures. These materials could plausibly work as their microscopic porosity could be engineered to trap electromagnetic signals to avoid detection.

A UAV’s advantage is its small size and low cost, making it cost-inefficient to produce specialized radar-deflecting designs. However, the Kürşat 3.0 could be a game-changer if other scientists can confirm that it really works. Many UAVs are so small that it’s difficult to detect them at longer distances — covering them with this “spray-on” RAM would only make it harder for defenders to detect and lock on to them using traditional radar sets.

This coating is not the be-all and end-all of drone stealth, though. That’s because most drones are built for efficiency and speed, not stealth, so they lack the required geometry to deflect radar signals. This is especially true for quadcopters, where the four exposed blades would easily reflect signals back to the radar transceiver. But because they’re often already tiny, covering them in Kürşat 3.0 spray would increase their survivability and make it harder for defenders to target them on their radar scopes.

With record reports of bear attacks on humans, Japan has been increasingly turning to high-tech solutions, as you might expect. However, reports suggest that Ohta Seiki, a firm making the animatronic robot Monster Wolf to repel bears from human-habituated areas, can’t keep up with demand. “We cannot make them fast enough,” company president Yuji Ohta told AFP.

This year’s order book for Monster Wolf has already hit 50 units. Hokkaido-based Ohta Seiki usually doesn’t even manufacture that many robot wolves in a whole year. According to the latest figures, bears killed 13 people in Japan last year. That’s more than double the fatality rate from the previous year. Sightings are up, too, with 50,000 reports of bears nationwide. That figure is more than double the previous sightings record.

Of course, fatalities are a statistic at the extreme end of the situation. There are also numerous non-fatal incidents where bears have seriously injured or scarred humans, entered homes, roamed around schools, scared guests at hot spring resorts, and even rampaged through supermarkets in Japan.

Above: A video from 2024 showing a Monster Wolf in action.

With the record upswing in bear attacks and sightings, it isn’t a big surprise that business is booming for Ohta Seiki. Its Monster Wolf product looks ferocious. The official product pages say that the robot wolf imitates its real wild world namesake, but it turns up the fear levels by “emitting intense LED lights and loud voices.” Ohta Seiki is currently asking customers to “wait two to three months” for their orders to be fulfilled.

The $4,000+ Monster Wolf has an infrared sensor to detect and target wild animals with its 50 types of loud noises, glowing red eyes, blue under-lighting, and neck swinging from side to side. The robot’s traversal of the terrain (wheels are an optional upgrade), animated movements, sounds, and lighting are powered by a combination of a 12V car battery and an (optional) solar charging panel.

Ohta Seiki has plans to expand its product range with a handheld version of Monster Wolf for hikers, anglers, and schoolchildren, reports AFP. It is also looking at leveraging AI cameras to improve its anti-bear tech.

Earlier in the year, we reported on bear-repelling drones being deployed around Ishinomaki City in Miyagi Prefecture to address concerns about a “bear infestation.”

The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has chosen four British firms to partner for the next milestone in Project NYX. This high-tech project seeks to develop autonomous “loyal wingmen” for British Army Apache helicopter crews. Anduril Industries (UK) Ltd, BAE Systems Operations Ltd, Tekever Ltd, and Thales UK Ltd have been shortlisted to drive the project forward and deliver on concepts for drones that will “increase lethality and survivability of the Apaches, while reducing risk to personnel.”

If you thought Apache helicopters were already a force to be reckoned with, imagine the sight of one or more of these war birds on the horizon, accompanied by a swarm of autonomous drones.

At this milestone stage, the MoD has invested £10 million (US$13,325,000) in the quartet of shortlisted companies, which have been whittled down from seven listed back in January. The remaining four aren’t working together on a collaborative Apache wingman drone design. Rather, according to the official press release, “all four designs to be assessed before a final partner is chosen later this year.” Actually, the MoD might choose two companies to move forward, depending on the designs from this phase of Project NYX, which are expected to be presented and judged in the fall this year.

The autonomous nature of the Project NYX drones means that Apache crews don’t face any further burdens on their skills. The drones can serve various purposes, says the MoD. Specifically, roles such as “reconnaissance, precision strike, target acquisition, and electronic warfare in contested environments” are mentioned.

The drones won't use or trigger weapons directly

At this stage, the government department says that the drones will not use or trigger weapons directly. Such decisions “will continue to be made by a human,” it asserts. We’d guess that under the pressure of a serious conflict, such safeguards could slip, though.

The MoD already has some idea of the range of solutions that are being worked upon by the shortlisted quartet of military tech makers. Images shared include a sampling of diverse UAS designs. Each design offers its own “innovative autonomy, payloads, and sensors,” says the press release.

After the winning prototype(s) are selected in fall 2026, the MoD aims to have operational Apache drone ‘wingmen’ ready for use in 2030.

Ukraine has developed an AI-powered anti-drone laser that is nearing battlefield readiness. A video shared on social media by the country's Celebra Tech shows the 'Tryzub' trailer-mounted system burning a hole through some armor in three to four seconds. The demo goes on to show an incoming drone in the AI-assisted sights of Tryzub being zapped and then crashing to the ground a few seconds later.

One news source, Euromaidan Press, says that the above demonstrated system has been in development by Ukrainian firm Celebra Tech since at least 2024. Now in its final stages of testing, Celebra Tech says that Tryzub can “burn holes in Shaheds from 5km away.” That's a 3.1-mile range.

Shaheds are one of the larger, more slow-moving drone types that Ukraine has to counter to protect its people. Smaller and faster-moving drones have to be nearer to be targeted. Specifically, it is claimed that reconnaissance drones within 1,500 meters and FPV drones at around 800–900 meters range can also be combated (1 meter is roughly 1.1 yards, or even more roughly, they are the same).

In addition to the powerful laser, AI target acquisition and tracking play a large part in the touted success of Tryzub. Radar is integrated into the mobile system, too. It isn’t said explicitly, but we guess the longer range of the radar can help position this mobile laser ready to intercept targets.

Ukraine’s Tryzub laser hasn’t just been demonstrated physically destroying airborne and/or ground-based targets; it can also interfere with FPV drone cameras.

The news report indicates that this laser can also be deployed for demining operations. That’s something it could be busier with if this terrible conflict eventually ends. After success in active duty, there’s also going to be a healthy export market for Tryzub in countries currently in conflict and bordering potential flashpoint areas. Thus, we see many companies/countries racing forward with their own drones and anti-drone tech.

Testing of the Tryzub continues. None of our sources offers a firm date for when it will become an active service weapon, but Celebra says the design is mass production-ready once trials are passed.

The Federal Communications Commission announced on Friday, May 8, through its Office of Engineering and Technology (OET), that it was extending temporary waivers allowing certain foreign-produced drones, drone components, and consumer routers to continue receiving software and firmware updates in the United States.

In late 2025 and early 2026, the FCC added these categories of equipment to its “Covered List,” which effectively blocked already-authorized devices from receiving post-approval software and firmware modifications. The agency subsequently issued waivers permitting critical security and functionality updates to continue through January 1, 2027, for drones and drone components, and through March 1, 2027, for consumer routers.

Under the updated waiver, manufacturers of affected devices will now be allowed to continue issuing software and firmware updates until at least January 1, 2029, provided the devices had already been authorized for use in the U.S. before being added to the FCC’s “Covered List.” The extension also broadens the waiver to include certain Class II permissive changes involving software and firmware updates intended to mitigate consumer harm.

The decision follows growing concern that a strict enforcement of the restrictions could unintentionally leave millions of existing devices vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, compatibility issues, and operational failures. In practical terms, without the waiver, manufacturers of affected products could have been blocked from deploying even basic security patches and bug fixes once the devices were designated as covered equipment.

The FCC first added foreign-produced unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), UAS critical components, and certain communications equipment to the Covered List in late 2025 as part of broader national security efforts to reduce reliance on potentially risky foreign technology infrastructure. Routers produced in foreign countries were later added to the list in March 2026, except for models that had received conditional approval from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security.

The restrictions stem from revisions to FCC equipment authorization rules adopted in October 2025. Those revisions effectively prohibited “permissive changes” to covered equipment — a category that includes software and firmware modifications made after a device has already received certification. While the rules were designed to tighten oversight on high-risk equipment, they also created a difficult dilemma: preventing updates could inadvertently make already-deployed devices less secure over time.

In its notice, the FCC acknowledged that continued software support remains necessary to protect U.S. consumers. The waiver specifically allows updates that maintain device functionality, patch vulnerabilities, and preserve compatibility with changing operating systems and network environments.

The agency argued that the public interest would be better served by allowing these limited updates rather than freezing software support entirely. According to the FCC, the waiver provides regulators time to consider a more permanent framework while avoiding immediate cybersecurity risks to users currently operating affected devices.

Importantly, the waiver does not reverse the broader restrictions or remove the devices from the Covered List. Instead, it applies only to already-authorized products and to software- and firmware-related changes intended to maintain safe and secure operation. Manufacturers must still comply with other FCC requirements governing permissive changes and equipment certification.

The move highlights the increasingly complex balancing act regulators worldwide face as governments seek to secure communications infrastructure without inadvertently creating new cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Japan’s Minister of Defense, Shinjirō Koizumi, said in a post on X on Monday that the country had begun using expendable cardboard drones developed by Japanese drone manufacturer AirKamuy. Speaking during a meeting with the startup, the minister confirmed that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force was already utilizing the company’s low-cost drones as aerial targets as Japan expands its use of unmanned systems across its military.

The drone, known as the AirKamuy 150, is a lightweight fixed-wing platform built primarily from corrugated cardboard with a water-resistant coating. Unlike conventional military drones that rely on expensive composite materials and specialized aerospace manufacturing, the AirKamuy 150 is designed around extreme affordability and mass production.

Perhaps, the drone’s most important feature is its cost. The AirKamuy 150 reportedly costs around $2,000 to $2,500 per unit. By military standards, that is extremely low. Conventional military reconnaissance and loitering drones can cost anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of dollars, depending on their role and sophistication. Even Iran’s Shahed drones, which became heavily associated with the rise of low-cost attritional drone warfare during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are estimated to cost roughly $20,000 to $50,000 each — potentially more than ten times the cost of the AirKamuy drone.

AirKamuy appears to have achieved part of its extreme cost reduction by radically simplifying the drone’s construction. The company’s use of corrugated cardboard rather than relying heavily on expensive aerospace composites or carbon-fiber airframes is a major factor. According to the company, the approach could allow the drones to be manufactured using ordinary cardboard production infrastructure rather than specialized aerospace facilities, potentially enabling rapid mass production during conflict.

The drone can reportedly travel roughly 50 miles or remain airborne for around 80 minutes using an electric propulsion system while carrying payloads weighing up to three pounds. The company also says the drones, which are prefab and can be assembled in five to ten minutes, are shipped flat-packed, allowing roughly 500 units to fit inside a standard shipping container.

Speaking to the Royal Aeronautical Society at the Singapore Airshow earlier this year, AirKamuy Chief Engineer Naoki Morita said the platform was primarily envisioned as a counter-drone system capable of operating in large numbers. Beyond functioning as aerial targets, the lightweight drones could potentially be deployed in swarms to overwhelm air-defense systems, force enemy radar activation, absorb defensive fire ahead of more valuable assets, or carry small reconnaissance payloads, electronic warfare equipment, or limited munitions for one-way attack missions.

“There is strong demand for low-cost drones that can operate in large numbers and over long distances,” said AirKamuy CEO Yamaguchi Takumi in an interview with NHK World-Japan. “This model can be manufactured at any cardboard plant, ensuring high mass production capability and a robust supply chain.”

The cardboard construction may also provide another advantage. Because cardboard has lower radar reflectivity than many conventional aerospace materials, the drones could present a smaller radar signature under certain conditions. While that would not make them invisible to radar systems, reduced detectability could make tracking more difficult, particularly for small, low-flying drones operating in large numbers.

The broader concept behind the AirKamuy 150 reflects a growing shift in military thinking toward low-cost expendable autonomous systems designed to operate in large numbers. Rather than protecting a small number of extremely expensive platforms, militaries are increasingly experimenting with cheap drones that can be sacrificed during reconnaissance, decoy, interception, or attack missions.

Recent conflicts are reflecting that shift. In Ukraine, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used large numbers of low-cost drones for reconnaissance and direct attacks. Similar tactics involving inexpensive unmanned systems have also appeared across conflicts in the Middle East.

The AirKamuy 150 may ultimately represent more than an unusual cardboard aircraft. It may instead offer a glimpse into the future of industrial-scale drone warfare — one increasingly defined not by a handful of expensive machines, but by vast numbers of cheap, rapidly replaceable autonomous systems.

The U.S. Navy just signed a $99.7 million deal with Domino Data Lab, a San Francisco-based startup, to develop AI tech that would allow its undersea minesweepers to learn about new and unseen mines in days instead of months. Reuters reports that this new technology is intended for use in the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint in global sea lanes that Iran has mined to limit the movement of oil and cargo ships since the start of the U.S.-Iran war earlier this year.

The software will use multiple sensor suites, such as side-scan sonar and visual imaging systems, to monitor various other AI detection models operating in the field. This should allow operators to identify failures and push corrections as it operates, rather than sending information back to a lab and waiting for AI developers to train a new model to handle novel threats.

"Mine-hunting used to be a job for ships. It's becoming a job for AI. The Navy is paying for the platform ​that lets it train, govern, and field that AI at a speed required for contested waters ​that block global trade and imperil sailors,” Domino CEO Thomas Robinson told the news outlet. "If there were UUVs (unmanned underwater vehicles) in the Baltic Sea trained on Russian ⁠mines, ​and then they needed to be deployed to the Strait ​of Hormuz to detect Iranian mines, with Domino's technology, the Navy could be ready in a week rather than a year."

The Pentagon has increasingly been turning towards AI to bolster its capabilities, with the Department of War announcing deals with seven AI tech companies — namely SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services — to deploy LLMs across its classified networks. These tools are designed to sift through large volumes of data and identify patterns that are simply impossible for people to process in such a short time, thereby speeding up data analysis and decision-making. DARPA, its independent research arm, has also called for proposals to develop the next-generation deep-sea underwater drone that can be built quickly.

The U.S. and Iran have had an on-again, off-again ceasefire in place for several weeks now. This makes mine-clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz high-risk, especially since strikes could occur at any moment and without warning. Deploying AI technology on undersea drones will reduce this risk, especially by making mine detection and removal much faster.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Department of War’s independent research and development agency, just issued a call for proposals to build an autonomous underwater drone. The program, which DARPA calls Deep Thoughts, is looking for the next generation of small autonomous undersea vehicles (AUVs) that can be built using readily available parts that allow for flexibility in the design. It also demands something that can be quickly produced, tested, and iterated on, with a development timeline of months or even weeks. More importantly, the AUV should be easily deployable from various platforms, so that users can launch it from submarines, ships, and even planes or helicopters.

Military drone development has been advancing at breakneck speed, with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) taking the stage during the ongoing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian troops have taken advantage of this relatively new technology to blunt Russian armor and halt its advance, while Iran has taken to using its Shahed drones to strike targets in the Middle East when the U.S. started its bombing campaign of the country earlier this year. Chinese military scientists and engineers have also been developing drone swarms, giving individual soldiers the capacity to control up to 200 units.

The U.S. is also working on its own innovations in the UAV space —the U.S. Marine Corp introducing a 3D-printed drone called HANX, allowing units to manufacture and repair drones in-house, while a defense startup is marketing its CobraJet counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) to defeat enemy drone swarms at a much more cost-effective way. However, it seems that the Pentagon wants to expand its drone capabilities beyond the sky and into the deep sea.

DARPA’s project specifically targeted deep ocean exploration, saying that “gaining responsive and scalable access to this environment offers a significant strategic advantage.” While traditional defense contractors, like General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries, the makers of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered subs, are certainly capable of building these projects for the U.S. government, the War Department is looking for novel ways to build these systems. That’s because these firms are often associated with time-consuming projects with billions of dollars in cost overruns — just look at the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier as an example.

At a time when the United States’ rivals are rapidly iterating on cheap drones, the Pentagon needs a program that can quickly adapt to changing technologies and take advantage of the latest systems without costing millions of dollars per unit. This is why both the U.S. and its Gulf allies have been purchasing 3D-printed interceptor drones that only cost $1,000 apiece, instead of deploying $4,000,000 Patriot missiles to take down a single Shahed drone that only costs $20,000 to $50,000 per unit.

One of the two supercarriers of the U.S. Navy has been testing advanced anti-drone laser weaponry. In a blog post this week, AeroVironment (AV) says that its LOCUST Laser Weapon System (LWS) was put aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) in October 2025. It was successfully demonstrated in a live-fire event where it “tracked, engaged, and neutralized multiple target drones.”

We aren’t sure if the LOCUST is still on board the USS George H.W. Bush, but it might be a useful extra layer of protection, as it was announced today that it is one of the three aircraft carriers operating in the Middle East right now – for the first time in decades.

AV’s VP of Directed Energy Systems, John Garrity, was effervescent about this latest collaborative venture. “LOCUST delivers effective, all-domain protection against emerging drone threats at the speed of light—on any platform, in any domain, for any mission,” said Garrity. “Rolling LOCUST onto a ship and quickly initiating operations facilitates the expanded use of high-energy lasers across the Fleet without the need for costly, time-consuming ship modifications,” he explained. Moreover, Garrity went as far as describing this successful demo as “a game-changer for the Navy and for our national security.”

We’ve covered LOCUST before. In January, we noted that it had been upgraded with “a larger aperture beam director, improving lethality performance.” That may have happened after the demo on the USS George H.W. Bush, as AV reveals the supercarrier hosted the LOCUST back in October 2025.

According to AV, shipboard deployments of LOCUST are a great fit for the tech as the LWS can roll on and off as needed, and run fully off a ship’s power. That gives the vessel “an unlimited DE magazine with an essentially unlimited power source.”

Drones everywhere

Drones are already well established in modern warfare, with thousands of them deployed by both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war. It wasn’t a surprise that Iran also unleashed its Shahed air terror tech against what it saw as U.S. Gulf state allies, plus the infrastructure of U.S. and Israeli businesses, following the strikes on its government, military, and supporting systems.

We also don’t see why a US-made mobile drone swarm killer like the Leonidas AGV with its high-power microwave platform can’t be easily positioned on large Navy vessels.

Video footage captured by Ukrainian Sting interceptor drones shows that Russia’s ceaseless drone assault is now powered by what some commentators have described as ‘flying garbage.’ Personnel from the Wild Hornets shared the video below earlier this week, which we’ve embedded below so you can see for yourself the state of these Russian-made Shahed drones immediately before they are obliterated (expand the tweet to view).

Wild Hornets credits the footage to Ukraine’s 23rd NGU Brigade and solemnly notes that “Every successful interception in the sky means one less explosion among civilians.”

The analysts at Defense-Blog provide some further context for what we can see in the video. This source paints a picture of Russian-made Shahed drones “literally disintegrating in the air before reaching their targets.” Indeed, pausing the video shows the seconds-before-their-doom drones have all sorts of build defects. Various body panels seem to be missing, stray wiring is visible, wingtips are deformed, and one of the drones featured already has “a completely detached nose fairing,” says the independent defense news outlet.

A utilitarian might say that these are mere cosmetic issues, but the source reckons they are surface symptoms of personnel, manufacturing, and supply problems facing the Russians. Specifically, it says that the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Russia’s Tatarstan region, where most of these drones are made, has a factory that runs around the clock with minimally trained operatives. It goes on to indicate that many of these imported workers are very young and have been lured/trapped into positions at these factories.

The poor working conditions are exacerbated by demands to churn out Shaheds to volume targets, using whatever “inferior” Chinese parts they can get hold of. Meanwhile, Ukraine is actively targeting known drone production and storage in Russia with its own long-range weaponry.

Finally, Defense-Blog indicates that the worsening of quality from the Russian drone production facilities is a factor in the declining Shahed-type UAV hit rate in Ukraine. It says that there’s been “a sustained decline in strike effectiveness beginning in October 2025,” which continues to the most recent observations. It concludes that quality control has collapsed, and the Shahed drones are now seen as “a tool of attrition rather than precision.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decided to give carte blanche approval of the military’s use of laser weaponry to shoot down suspected errant drones in U.S. airspace, reports the New York Times. This decision comes after a controversial move by the FAA, back in February, when it closed airspace in response to the military firing high-energy lasers at suspected drug cartel drones. Those drones over Texas turned out to be “party balloons.” That incident, causing delays to civil aviation with flight paths over the area, likely made relations between the FAA, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Pentagon quite icy.

Now you may be wondering what’s changed to result in the two-month standoff between the FAA and the Pentagon being over. There may have been some political pressure on one side or another – that’s open for debate. However, what we do know is that the FAA has completed its safety assessments.

According to the source, the FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford, shared a report that concluded, “These systems do not present an increased risk to the flying public.” Furthermore, even if the anti-drone laser beams came into contact with civil aircraft, the risk would be minimal, an anonymous FAA insider told the NYT.

The FAA isn’t just going to wash its hands of lasers piercing civil air corridors, though. It is expected to issue advisories to pilots who fly routes over U.S. southern border areas to make them aware of increased anti-drone laser use in these zones. Also, remember that stray drones can be a physical danger to aircraft.

From now on, we assume that the Pentagon will be able to shoot high-energy lasers liberally along the southern border, ostensibly to destroy cartel drug mule drones and the like. It would still probably be wise if they could coordinate with the FAA somehow, despite not needing to ask for permission.

We covered the news of an advanced LOCUST laser weapon system being used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to shoot down “party balloons” back in mid-February this year. It served as a reminder that those controlling the government’s machinery designed to protect us are far from infallible.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) just revealed its intelligent canine robots that can work together in a swarm for urban combat. These “wolf packs” were shown off on a TV documentary named Unmanned Competition for the state channel CCTV, according to the South China Morning Post. What made these new drone models different was that they could coordinate directly with each other, allowing a group of robot dogs to be controlled by a single soldier without micromanagement.

These land drones also come with specialized tasks — there’s the Shadow variant, which is designed for reconnaissance and situational awareness, while the Polar one is tasked with logistical support. At the sharp end of the group is the Bloody variant; this model can be equipped with various weapons, including small missiles, grenade launchers, and automatic weapons. Each drone reportedly has a top speed of 9 mph (about 14.5 kmph) with a payload capacity of 55 pounds (25 kg). More importantly, the four-legged construction of these devices lets them traverse extreme environments, including rough terrain, allowing them to move independently of roads.

There are various ways of controlling the entire drone task force, including through voice commands, via a tactical glove, or by a control stick that can be directly mounted on rifles. While these machines can operate independently and are capable of autonomous identification and targeting, it’s said that they still require human confirmation to conduct a strike.

Combined drone arms

The robot wolves aren’t limited to land operations. While they cannot take flight, they can coordinate their actions with other drones to combine air-ground operations. One such example is the Atlas uncrewed aerial vehicle, which works together as a single swarm with up to 96 individual drones with specific tasks, including reconnaissance, jamming, and strikes. This is aside from the 200-strong AI drone swarm that the PLA revealed earlier this year, which was also controlled by a single operator.

Modern battlefields have shown that airborne drones pose a major threat in combat operations, so the Chinese military also showed off two anti-drone laser weapons. The Guangjian 11-E uses a more energy-efficient low-power laser designed to take down smaller drones, like the ones that are typically sold commercially, while the more powerful 21-A version is built for “hard destruction,” likely meaning it’s powerful enough to destroy an airborne target.

Finally, police in Zhuhai, Guangdong, located outside of Macau and across the bay to the west of Hong Kong, showcased their L30 uncrewed surface vessels. These autonomous boats can hit 35 knots (around 65 kph or 40 mph) and have a range of 300 nautical miles (about 556 km or 345 miles). Just like the other drones, the L30 fleet can work together and use AI for targeting and response. It can also perform blockades and ram other vessels to disable them, as necessary.

One more technology that Chinese researchers are working on for these drones is “satellite-denied navigation,” which would allow these weapons to operate and coordinate, even in areas where there is jamming and active signal denial. Their goal is to achieve “large-scale full autonomy,” allowing the Chinese military to deploy combined arms drone task forces to achieve military objectives without needing human intervention.

BRINC, a startup that specializes in building Drone as First Responder (DFR) aircraft, has just announced its latest product, called Guardian, which is equipped with an onboard Starlink receiver. This removes the signal limitation that the average drone has, which is required to be within signal distance of its base station or within range of cellular or other terrestrial signals. The company says that this gives the Guardian a much longer range — eight miles, instead of the usual three — from its base station, and is only limited by its battery power, not by its connection to its operator.

The company did not just stop at giving the Guardian a near-unlimited communication range through Starlink — it also received several upgrades that made it so much more flexible. One of these is the automatic battery swap capability, allowing the drone to quickly get back into action when it’s low on power instead of waiting 25 minutes on the ground to completely recharge. It can also carry various payloads, including defibrillators, Narcan, floatation devices, and other emergency equipment, depending on the situation, and deliver them to both civilians and first responders as needed.

The Guardian features an integrated camera with 4K video and 640 times zoom, making it easier to survey the surroundings and find people from over a thousand feet away. It can also carry a 1,000-lumen SkyBeam spotlight to help light up the skies during night rescue and recovery operations.

Aside from serving in medical and other emergencies, BRINC also built the drone for use with law enforcement. It comes with dual HD thermal zoom cameras, making it easier to spot individuals in low-light conditions, and has a built-in laser rangefinder for accurately determining distances without requiring officers to see the target. It also gets a speaker and a siren that’s reportedly three times louder than what you’d find on police cars, basically turning it into a tiny airborne police cruiser.

These technologies aren’t essentially new, especially as you’d likely find them on military drones. In fact, Russia is allegedly still using Starlink-connected drones in Ukraine, resulting in the company issuing an emergency fix to block the use of its service in bombing Ukraine. But by putting all these features together in a small package that can be operated by civilian agencies, BRINC is giving first responders so much more capability which were previously exclusive to expensive helicopters.

A trio of U.S. industry leaders in defense, autonomy, and directed energy have collaborated on a new solution to neutralize drone swarms. Today, the Leonidas Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV) was announced as an autonomous mobile answer to the growing asymmetric threat from the skies. Specifically, it combines the Epirus Leonidas high-power microwave platform, the Kodiak Driver autonomous system, and General Dynamics Land Systems’ system integration expertise.

Advances in drone warfare are reshaping how nations think about offense and defense. We’ve recently reported on how Ukraine’s experience has been helping Gulf nations address this new kind of threat. As impressive as embattled Ukraine’s ingenuity is, countering ‘cheap’ drones effectively with ‘cheap’ anti-drone measures – an effective high-tech answer would be welcome. Perhaps the Leonidas AGV is it.

In a press release received by Tom’s Hardware, the collaborators behind the project highlighted that the AGV can be teleoperated to safely extend the lines of drone defenses and operated without human intervention. The rapidly deployable mobile unit can then dish out its deadly(to drones) directed microwave energy.

According to the AGV makers, it is effective against individual, swarm, or fiber-optic-controlled drone attacks. Previously, the Epirus Leonidas high-power microwave platform has enjoyed success in the field. We reported on it being demonstrated, downing 49 drones in one shot, last year. Thus, there is little reason to doubt its extended effectiveness as part of this autonomous mobile platform. It is basically driven to exactly where it will work best by Kodiak Driver from Kodiak AI. In case you haven’t heard of Kodiak AI, in 2024, it delivered the tech behind the first customer-owned and -operated driverless trucks in commercial service.

“Saturation drone attacks demand a fundamentally different approach to defense,” said Andy Lowery, CEO of Epirus. “Leonidas AGV combines autonomous mobility with high-power microwave effects to deliver a counter-UAS capability that rapidly maneuvers to defeat drone swarms without more boots on the ground. Together with GDLS and Kodiak, we’re enabling a new layer of autonomous drone defense for critical assets and infrastructure.”

General Dynamics Land Systems is a specialist unit of General Dynamics which provided the design, engineering, production, and combat vehicle support ‘glue’ to transition the AGV from a concept into a demonstrable prototype.

A full-scale Leonidas AGV prototype will be on display at Booth 801 this week, at the AUSA Global Force Symposium & Exhibition. The symposium begins today, at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama.