Every UASFeed story on DARPA — across defense, counter-UAS, industry, commercial, policy, and tech, newest first.
A 13.3 kg conventional single-rotor helicopter from AVIDrone outlifted over 100 exotic drone designs at DARPA's Lift Challenge, hauling 51 kg of cast iron for a 3.84:1 ratio — though no one hit the 4:1 target DARPA wanted.
Read the story →AVIDrone's conventional-rotor Katana beat out more exotic VTOL designs to win DARPA's $6.5M Lift Challenge, hauling 112.4 lbs on a 29.3-lb airframe — just shy of the 4:1 target DARPA set for the field.
Avidrone's single-rotor Katana won DARPA's Lift Challenge with a 3.84:1 payload-to-weight ratio, narrowly missing the agency's 4x target as dozens of teams competed for a $6.5 million prize pool at the Air Force Museum in Dayton.
Roughly 115 teams converge on the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force this week to chase DARPA's $6.5 million prize for a sub-55-pound VTOL aircraft that can lift a 110-pound payload — as one finalist, Jetoptera, walks away over new safety rules.
More than 120 teams descended on Wright-Patterson AFB this week to chase $6.5 million in DARPA prize money for a sub-55-pound drone that can haul four times its own weight.
A taxonomy of the drone-mothership concept across air, sea, and ground domains — from robotic combat vehicles and containerized launchers to submarine tenders — and why range-stacking and cost asymmetry are reshaping every branch of warfare.
DARPA has grown its Lift Challenge to 124 teams from 20+ countries, setting up a $6.5 million heavy vertical-lift flyoff at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, August 2-9, with public finals August 6-9.
DARPA's $3.37M "Rads to Watts" award puts Morgan State University in charge of turning Strontium-90 nuclear waste into radiovoltaic power cells aimed at giving drones and satellites decades of untethered flight.
A Morgan State-led team is building SYMPHONEE, a Strontium-90 radiovoltaic cell under a $3.37M DARPA contract, targeting over 10 W/kg and decades of unattended power for drones and remote systems.
Russian electronic warfare can blank GPS within 5 kilometers of deployment. Shield AI’s president says 99% of military autonomous systems fail under jamming. The solution — running perception, navigation, and targeting entirely on the drone — is now combat-proven.
Optionally piloted aircraft hold manned airworthiness certificates while enabling fully autonomous operations—closing the regulatory gap that stalls pure UAVs. From proven Afghan cargo resupply missions to DARPA’s autonomous Black Hawk delivered to the Army in 2026, the concept reshapes military logistics and aviation.
Drone light shows and true autonomous swarms share an airspace but almost nothing else. The decentralized MANET/FANET mesh—multi-hop routing, anti-jamming MARL, GPS-denied positioning—is what separates choreography from genuine collective autonomy, and what DARPA OFFSET and Replicator's $1B are chasing.
Free daily briefing — military UAS, counter-drone, industry moves, and the rules of the sky.
You're in. ✓
Check your inbox to confirm your subscription.No spam. Unsubscribe any time. Read our privacy policy.
