Angeline Leishman
The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded a total of $14 million to seven companies to develop small unmanned aircraft systems for military use.
DIU issued the Defense Production Act Title III Program awards as part of the Blue sUAS initiative to expand the availability of commercial technologies in national defense missions.
The awardees include Kutta Technologies, Skydio, Shield AI, STR, Tomahawk Robotics and Vantage Robotics.
Auterion Government Solutions secured a pair of awards from the agency.
“This investment in the defense industrial base is intended to provide critical battlefield capabilities across the spectrum of conflict, including on-demand reconnaissance which augments service members’ capabilities and increases their survivability, lethality, and mission flexibility,” said Jesse Salazar, deputy assistant secretary for industrial policy at DOD.
DOD noted that personnel use drones to conduct imagery collection, mapping, bomb search and shooting incident response operations.
