The Defense Innovation Unit announced Friday it’s awarding contracts to four companies to prototype long-range, single-use drones that can launch quickly, carry a range of payloads and operate in low-bandwidth conditions.
The vendors include two U.S. based companies, Dragoon and AeroVironment, and two Ukrainian firms, unnamed due to safety concerns. The Ukrainian firms are each partnered with a U.S. software company, one with Swan and the other with Auterion. All four firms will test demonstrate their capabilities in April and May, and DIU will make its selections soon after.
The program, called Artemis, was initiated last year by Congress following demand from operators in U.S. European Command and Indo-Pacific Command for low-cost, expendable drones as well as counter-drone capabilities. As part of a supplemental spending package for Ukraine, lawmakers allotted the U.S Defense Department around $35 million and directed it to identify and test low-cost uncrewed systems that can navigate and communicate through jamming and spoofing attempts.
The intent was to move fast and prove that these systems could be ready to field much faster than a traditional, yearslong defense acquisition program. The Pentagon’s acquisition and sustainment office delegated the expendable-drone requirement to DIU last August, according to Trent Emeneker, the organization’s lead for the effort.
In just three months, DIU solicited proposals, selected 16 promising concepts and staged an initial demonstration last December. Nine of the proposed systems were flight-ready and, from those, officials chose four to advance to the prototyping phase.
Emeneker told Defense News that DIU picked proposals that took different tacks at addressing the need. While there was a requirement for a flight range of at least 50km, two of the drones have a range of about 100km and the other two can fly more than 1,000km. In its solicitation, DIU said the vehicles should be hard to detect and track, have several pathways for two-way communications and be equipped with mission planning software. It also called for modular systems that can integrate new hardware or software in a matter of hours.
The smaller systems DIU is considering cost under $20,000 each, Emeneker said, while the price for the larger drones is closer to $70,000, depending on the cost of things like cameras and other subsystems as well as the number of systems DOD ends up buying.
The goal, according to DIU, is “mass deployment,” though it’s not clear how many drones the department will buy. As part of its evaluation, DIU will consider each vendor’s production capacity and how quickly it can deliver in large quantities. Emeneker noted that one of the Ukrainian firms is already producing nearly 200 systems each month to support operations against Russian invading forces.
Unlike most other projects DIU takes on, Artemis didn’t originate with an acquisition office, but was a congressional interest item, so the organization doesn’t have a natural transition partner to buy and field the drones it selects.
Emeneker said DIU has pitched the project to a number of program offices that are working on programs with similar requirements, but it’s been a challenge to get the services to buy in — and disrupt their current work — before the prototypes have flown.
“We have to prove we can do it, and if we can’t do it, then I don’t blame people for not signing up,” he said. “But when we prove we can do it — I’m confident we will — we have to get that message out of, ‘Hey, this solution works today. It’s at the right price point, it is ready, it’s combat proven.’”
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
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