Updates from the global drone industry
DJI has unveiled the Agras T55 and T100, two new spraying and pest-control drone systems that push payload capacity in the agricultural drone market to industrial-grade levels, building on a global installed base of over 600,000 units.
American defense company Auterion and Ukrainian manufacturer Skyfall have signed a deal to supply 50,000 FPV drones equipped with autonomy software for striking moving targets, double the size of the company's previous contract.
A week of speculation about a Matrice 30 successor ended with a far more modest product: an emergency parachute system built for the Matrice 400. The choice may hide a regulatory calculation as weighty as any engineering one.
Ukrainian defense company Ukrainian Armor has introduced a new FPV drone called the UB80D10-EFP, fitted with an EFP warhead that the company says can penetrate 50 mm of armor.
The US Department of Defense has signed a five-year contract with AeroVironment worth up to $874.26 million, covering sales of strike, reconnaissance and counter-drone systems to foreign militaries. Combat experience in Ukraine has become the company's key selling point.
Washington and Kyiv advanced a framework today that would give the Pentagon access to Ukraine's cheap attack and interceptor drone designs, in exchange for payment and royalties to local manufacturers.
Amazon carried out its first drone deliveries in Europe today, in the town of San Salvo in Italy's Abruzzo region, alongside separate trials in the UK.
Amazon has ended drone delivery operations in Lockeford, California, one of Prime Air's first two launch sites, while securing FAA approval to fly beyond the operator's visual line of sight. The company has already opened a new site in Arizona that folds drones directly into an active logistics hub.
וולמארט מרחיבה את רשת משלוחי הרחפנים שלה עם ארבעה שותפים, DroneUp, Zipline, Flytrex ו-Wing, במקום לבנות צי רחפנים משלה כמו אמזון.
Ukraine's FPV drone production jumped from roughly 1,000 units a month in October 2023 to about 50,000 by December, while the number of domestic manufacturers tripled in a single year.
Armed Houthi fighters hijacked the cargo vessel Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea, capturing all 25 crew members, just days after the US Navy intercepted a drone launched from Yemen, in an incident marking a new front of maritime attacks.
Nearly a decade after first unveiling the vision, Amazon has completed its first real-world commercial drone deliveries, in two small market towns in California and Texas.
