Army picks two companies to get small drones to brigade combat teams

The U.S. Army has picked Anduril Industries and Performance Drone Works to provide Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems, or SUAS, to Army units as part of an effort to buy capability fast and get it into soldiers’ hands as the service races to modernize its force.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George has called the effort “transformation in contact,” where the service buys available commercial-off-the-shelf capability and then battle tests it with soldiers, instead of spending decades developing something before fielding it only to discover it is outdated by the time it gets to units.

“Transforming in contact is the way our Army can adapt its formations and get new technology in the hands of soldiers to experiment, innovate, learn, and change at the pace required,” George said in a statement Thursday. “The Company Level Small UAS Directed Requirement effort is a great example of how we are achieving this.”

The program “is another example of the Army’s ability to rapidly move from an idea to a requirement, to a competition, to testing, to contract awards for production,” the Army’s acquisition chief, Doug Bush, added. “This shows the acquisition system can move at the pace needed to support the Army, especially in rapidly emerging technology areas like small uncrewed aircraft systems.”

Anduril and Performance Drone Works will provide the first tranche of systems that will meet the company-level SUAS requirement in a deal valued at $14.42 million. The service approved the requirement in June 2023.

Performance Drone Works’ C-100 UAS and Anduril’s Ghost X will give brigade maneuver companies the ability to conduct reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition missions. The drones will be reconfigurable with modular payloads and attritable.

The Ghost X drone was spotted earlier this year as part of the Army’s human-machine integration evaluation event at Fort Irwin, California, where it served as the preliminary eyes of an infantry company concealed by the surrounding mountains readying to reclaim a village held by the enemy as part of a live-fire exercise.

The Army is prioritizing the acquisition of small, adaptable and expendable drones as it continues to learn from drone use in the Ukraine and other ongoing wars.

The service was able to move quickly in selecting drones for the first tranche because both platforms are already on the Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS list of technology approved for Defense Department use, the statement notes.