WingtraOne, AltaX, Spirit, and eBee Tac drones added to Blue sUAS 2.0

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) of the Pentagon has revised its Blue sUAS list of drones that fulfill requirements for use by US military and government agencies.

Added to the Blue sUAS 2.0 list

As part of the Blue sUAS 2.0 initiative, the following authorized drones have been added to the DIU “Blue UAS Cleared List”:

• WingtraOne, by Wingtra
• Spirit, by Ascent AeroSystems
• eBee Tac, by senseFly, an AgEagle company
• AltaX, by Freefly Systems

Adding new drone models to the Blue sUAS 2.0 list is an ongoing process by the DUI.

Approved Blue sUAS have passed a cyber-security examination, an NDAA compliance check, and were given the relevant administrative documents.

The US military and other government agencies can buy and operate Blue sUAS without needing an exemption from the Department of Defense.

Federal government partners may also use this onboarding approach for their programmatic requirements without duplicating efforts.

“The Blue UAS Cleared List will provide a common approval standard that can save the Services time and money, inform acquisition policy updates, and make it easier for troops to gain access to previously inaccessible commercial tech,” said Capt. Shelby Ochs, DIU program manager for Blue UAS. “Blue sUAS 2.0 vendors have been great partners while we prototype this new process for commercial-off-the-shelf sUAS.”

DIU executed 11 agreements with non-traditional suppliers in October 2021 to participate in this pilot initiative to prototype a new clearance procedure while dramatically extending the diversity of capabilities accessible to all branches of the United States military.

This extension will give the DoD and its federal partners more drone capabilities such as infrastructure inspection, mapping, carrying secondary payloads, and more conventional reconnaissance duties.

DIU's first Blue sUAS project, dubbed “1.0,” was revealed in August 2020. The Army's last five Short Range Reconnaissance candidate air vehicles were modified somewhat by Blue sUAS 1.0.

The program merged commercially-based ground control stations to establish the first independent commercial/enterprise configuration that was accessible to all DoD and other US government institutions. 

WingtraOne, Spirit, eBeeTec, AltaX, and the other Blue UAS Approved List systems that will be revealed shortly will join current Blue sUAS 1.0 cleared systems on a number of procurement platforms.

Ongoing updates to the Blue UAS website will give further policies, approvals, and commonly asked questions for vendors and government sUAS usage.

This was updated from the April 13, 2022 update and will be updated if new items are added to the Cleared List.

Keep in mind that Blue sUAS can be 8 to 14 times more expensive to purchase than the Chinese DJI and Autel drones they replace.

Photos courtesy of Wingtra and FreeFly Systems.

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