Ukraine
MaXon Systems Built the $3,500 Autonomous Drone That Kills Shaheds Without a Pilot
MaXon Systems built a $3,500 fixed-wing drone that launches, flies, and kills Shaheds autonomously. First combat use confirmed in Kharkiv on June 8.
Haye Kesteloo
Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Founder of DroneXL.co, where he covers all drone-related news, DJI rumors and writes drone reviews, and of EVXL.co, for all electric vehicle news. Haye can be reached at haye @ dronexl.co or @hayekesteloo.
6,270
Articles
271
Beats covered
2020
Writing since
Aug 26
Latest story
Search & Rescue
Navy Surface Drone Pulls Two Apache Crew From the Strait of Hormuz in the First Sea-Drone Rescue the U.S. Military Has Ever Run
A U.S. Navy surface drone pulled two downed Apache crew from the Strait of Hormuz, the first time an unmanned vessel has rescued U.S. military personnel.
Anduril
Anduril’s Brian Schimpf Spent Nine Years Warning of a Munitions Crisis. The Iran War Proved Him Right.
Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf has warned for nine years that the U.S. can't build weapons fast enough. Operation Epic Fury and a $61B valuation just tested that.
FAA
Providence Drone Ban Locks Down Downtown Until July 21 As World Cup Ghana Base Camp Gets FAA No-Fly Ring
An FAA temporary flight restriction bans drones over downtown Providence until July 21, protecting Ghana's World Cup base camp. Penalties reach $100,000.
Drone Incidents
Shield AI V-BAT Severs Romanian Officer’s Fingers as Reuters Documents 50-Plus Crashes
A Romanian Navy official lost two fingers and fractured a third on May 12 when her hand was caught in the propeller of a Shield AI V-BAT drone during a training exercise on a boat off the Texas coast. Romania’s Ministry of National Defence confirmed the injury to Reuters, which reported it Thursday as part…
Drone Research
TU Delft’s SquirrelDrone Morphs Its Whole Body to Fly, Ditching the Bird Playbook Everyone Else Copies
A research team at Delft University of Technology has built a drone that changes the shape of its entire body in flight the way a flying squirrel does, and the data says the trick works. The aircraft, called the SquirrelDrone, stretches its limbs, bends its spine, flicks its tail, and lets a soft skin-like membrane…
DJI
The New York Times Spent 10 Minutes On AI Farming And Forgot The Drones Spraying The Fields
The New York Times Magazine published a feature on June 5 about the technology rewiring American agriculture, and the one machine actually flying over these fields barely made the cut. Robotic milkers, laser weeders, and driverless tractors each got a farmer, a photo essay, and a few hundred words. Spray drones got a single clause:…
Counter-Drone
AFRICOM’s CURTAIN CALL Swarm Cleared a Harder Test. Confirmed Kills Weren’t the Point.
U.S. Africa Command ran its CURTAIN CALL drone-swarm defense through a second field test at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California from April 27 to May 1, 2026, and this round added the threat the program was built to stop: a coordinated attack by several drones at once, not a single aircraft. What the command…
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