Every UASFeed story on DARPA — across defense, counter-UAS, industry, commercial, policy, and tech, newest first.
Boston startup MagLev Aero landed simultaneous DARPA MVP and Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative awards on Sept. 25 to push its magnetically levitated ducted-fan propulsion toward a TRL-6 flight demo.
Read the story →DARPA has confirmed a second Lift Challenge for summer 2028 that doubles the minimum payload to 220 lbs and the course to 10 nautical miles, raising the bar after AVIDrone's 3.84:1 payload-to-weight finish this August.
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.
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.
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