All articles
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Defense & Combat
Drone Boats at War: How Uncrewed Surface Vessels Rewrote Naval Combat
Ukraine's Magura V5 and Sea Baby USVs sank warships, struck bridges, and drove Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol — without Ukraine deploying a single conventional warship. Here's how the platforms work, what they've accomplished, and what the U.S. Navy is building in response.
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Defense & Combat
The Undersea Drone Explained: UUV Categories, Programs, and the Race Below
Uncrewed undersea vehicles now patrol the same cables that carry 97% of global communications. From man-portable REMUS scouts to 85-ton Orca XLUUVs, this is how the U.S. Navy classifies, builds, and struggles to field them — and why China is moving faster.
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Commercial & Delivery
Agricultural Spray Drones: Machinery, Markets, and the FAA's Dual-Regime Gauntlet
From Japan's 1997 Yamaha RMax to today's 40-liter multirotor platforms, agricultural spray drones are reshaping crop protection across Asia and slowly entering U.S. fields — once operators survive a 4-to-6-month federal certification maze bridging Part 107 and Part 137.
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Policy & Regulation
The American Security Drone Act, Explained: What the Federal UAS Ban Actually Covers
The American Security Drone Act of 2023, enacted in the FY2024 NDAA, banned federal procurement and operation of Chinese-made drones — effective December 22, 2025 — extending to every contractor and grant recipient spending federal money, not just agencies.
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Policy & Regulation
The BVLOS Bottleneck: How Drone Delivery Regulation Varies Across the World
Wing has logged over 400,000 deliveries. Meituan runs 28,000 daily flights across 12 Chinese cities. Yet for most of the world, the fundamental question of who can fly autonomously over populated areas remains unresolved — a regulatory coordination problem, not an engineering one.
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Commercial & Delivery
Drone-in-a-Box: How Autonomous Docking Systems Are Redefining Unmanned Operations
Drone-in-a-box systems launch, fly missions, and recharge without anyone on site. From American Robotics' first BVLOS waiver in 2021 to Percepto's 30-drone fleet approvals and Part 108's 2026 compliance framework, the technology and regulation are converging at scale.
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Commercial & Delivery
How Drone Light Shows Work: GPS, Software, and the FAA Gauntlet
From centimeter-accurate RTK positioning to 90-day FAA waiver packages, drone light shows are precision aerospace operations disguised as entertainment. A technical look at the systems, operators, regulations, and failure modes behind the art form.
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Policy & Regulation
Drone Privacy Law in the US: A Jurisdictional Patchwork Built on 1980s Cases
The FAA controls where drones fly but explicitly disclaims authority over what they see. What fills that gap is a collision of 1940s property doctrine, Supreme Court aviation precedents from the Reagan era, 24 divergent state statutes, and a 2024 Michigan ruling that may define the legal terrain for years.
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Commercial & Delivery
Drone as First Responder: How Autonomous UAVs Are Reshaping Emergency Dispatch
From a single FAA pilot program in Chula Vista to more than 6,000 police drone programs nationwide, the Drone as First Responder model is rewriting response-time math — and forcing a serious civil-liberties reckoning.
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Policy & Regulation
FAA Part 107 Explained: The Commercial Drone Certificate That Governs U.S. Airspace
14 CFR Part 107 sets the floor for every commercial UAS operation in the United States — and the FAA evaluates the purpose of your flight, not your intent. Here is what certification requires, what the operating rules permit, and what Part 108 changes next.
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Policy & Regulation
The Magnet Problem: How China’s Rare Earth Grip Threatens Every Drone on Earth
China controls 93% of global rare earth magnet manufacturing — the same magnets that spin every brushless motor in every military and commercial drone. When Beijing tightened export controls in 2025, the supply chain risk stopped being theoretical.
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Policy & Regulation
The Legal Architecture of Armed Drone Strikes: Three Overlapping Regimes, One Persistent Gap
Armed drones operate inside a dense, contested body of international law spanning the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the Missile Technology Control Regime. Here is what that framework actually requires — and where it consistently breaks down.
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