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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave the U.S. military formal clearance on Friday to use high-energy lasers against suspected drones in U.S. airspace, ending a two-month interagency dispute that twice shut down commercial flight operations over the Texas-Mexico border. FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said in a joint statement with the Defense Department that the agency…
US defense startup XDOWN has unveiled the STUD (Small Tactical Unmanned Drone), a hand-launched UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) designed to reach active flight from a stowed position in two seconds. According to NextGen Defense, a single soldier can carry 8 to 12 units in a standard tactical backpack, launch them by hand, and let the…
The Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) is telling the full story of what seven drones stationed across the city are actually doing, and the numbers are hard to argue with. In an interview with KKTV published April 6, 2026, CSPD Sgt. Jeff Edmonds said the drones, part of the department’s Real Time Crime Center Unit,…
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have three stories for you this week: a report that confirms that, sadly, nobody is coming to replace DJI in the consumer market; the FCC has opened public comments on drone spectrum reforms; and Oregon is telling the FCC to build drone test sites in the mountains…
Yaroslav Azhnyuk went from building a smartphone-controlled laser toy for bored pets to manufacturing AI-guided kamikaze drones that fly their final attack run without human input. The New York Times profiled Azhnyuk and his two defense companies today, documenting how his team at Odd Systems and The Fourth Law repurposed the same core technology stack,…
Skyrover posted a “We’re Here to Stay” announcement to its official Reddit community this week, formally titled “A Letter to Our U.S. Customers: Our Long-Term Commitment to the Drone Community.” The statement lays out a five-year roadmap covering FCC compliance, US-based customer support, and a promise to “explore US-based manufacturing and a localized supply chain.”…
Two Harvard mechanical engineering seniors have built a fixed-wing VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) drone from scratch to help marine biologists locate sperm whales tagged with VHF (very high frequency) transmitters off the coast of Dominica, according to a project profile published by Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Kuma McCraw…
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase, used his annual letter to shareholders, released April 6, 2026, to call explicitly for the United States to rapidly develop and produce drones domestically, and to announce a $1.5 trillion, 10-year initiative that names drones as one of five priority investment areas. The full letter…
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