All articles
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Policy & Regulation
Who Can Legally Shoot Down a Drone in the US — and Why the Answer Is Complicated
Federal aircraft law, the Aircraft Sabotage Act, and overlapping wiretapping statutes mean that almost nobody — not state police, not sheriffs, not private citizens — had clear legal authority to neutralize a rogue drone until Congress began carving out narrow exceptions.
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Counter-UAS
How Drone Detection Actually Works: Radar, RF, EO/IR, and the Fusion Stack
No single sensor can catch every drone. Here is how radar, RF analyzers, electro-optical/infrared cameras, and acoustic arrays each cover different gaps — and why military and federal planners are betting on layered fusion architectures to close them.
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Counter-UAS
Golden Dome Explained: The $1.2 Trillion Bet on Space-Based Missile Defense
Trump's Golden Dome extends U.S. homeland missile defense from rogue-state ICBMs to cruise missiles and drones — but a CBO projection of $1.2 trillion over 20 years, driven by a 7,800-satellite constellation that can only engage 10 missiles at once, exposes a gap between strategic ambition and reality.
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Counter-UAS
Shotgun vs. Sniper Rifle: How HPM and Laser C-UAS Weapons Actually Work
Two directed-energy technologies are competing to replace the $2-million missile shot against $500 drones — high-power microwave systems that blanket swarms in a single burst, and high-energy lasers that burn targets one at a time. The physics of each determines where they win and where they fail.
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Counter-UAS
NATO's Drone Wall: How Europe Is Building a 2,000-Kilometer Counter-UAS Barrier
After Russian surveillance drones crossed into Polish airspace in September 2025, NATO launched Operation Eastern Sentry and the EU accelerated plans for a 2,000-km integrated counter-drone corridor. Here's how the technology, politics, and money actually stack up.
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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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