The US Air Force is preparing to buy several Chinese-made DJI drones for an unusual reason: to help protect one of America’s most sensitive military installations from the very drones it has spent years warning about.

Ondas is expanding its defense drone footprint in the Midwest with the opening of a new training, testing, and flight operations facility in Springfield, Ohio.

Ondas has secured another major win with the US Army, announcing that its defense subsidiary, Mistral, has received a new order worth more than $50 million for tactical Lethal Unmanned Systems (LUS), also known as loitering munitions or “kamikaze drones.”

As drone swarms become one of the biggest headaches for militaries around the world, defense companies are racing to develop new ways to stop them without firing expensive missiles at every target. Lockheed Martin says its latest system is built to tackle that challenge.

For years, the drone industry has focused on what aircraft can do in the sky. But a new $1.5 billion acquisition suggests the next big business opportunity may be controlling the drones you don’t want there.

As low-cost attack drones continue reshaping modern warfare, Japanese drone company Terra Drone is now taking a major step deeper into the defense sector. The company has announced the operational deployment of its new fixed-wing interceptor drone, called Terra A2, in Ukraine — one of the world’s most intense real-world testing grounds for anti-drone technologies.

As GPS jamming and spoofing become increasingly common in modern warfare, drone operators are running into a frustrating problem: the video feed may look perfectly clear, but the geographic coordinates tied to that footage can be wildly inaccurate. That issue can make precision targeting nearly impossible, a challenge defense companies are now calling “targeting paralysis.”

As tensions involving Iran continue to cast a long shadow over the Middle East — with drone attacks, proxy clashes, and flashpoint escalations becoming increasingly common — the US military is rolling out a new line of defense: fully autonomous, always-on drones.

The next time a rogue drone strays into restricted US airspace, especially along the southern border, it may be taken down by a beam of light traveling at the speed of physics. And according to federal regulators, that futuristic response won’t put airline passengers at risk.

UK drone solutions provider Coptrz is teaming up with Amsterdam-based drone maker Avy for emergency services and defense sectors. The deal is designed to unlock long-endurance, Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone operations — something governments worldwide are racing to scale.

AirHub is doubling down on a future where drones aren’t just tools; they’re part of the operational backbone for security, defense, and critical infrastructure. And with fresh funding in hand, the European company is making a serious push to lead that transformation.

Teledyne FLIR OEM is doubling down on one of the fastest-evolving areas in modern defense: smarter, more autonomous drones. The company, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, has rolled out a major upgrade to its Prism SKR (“seeker”) software, transforming it from a targeting tool into a full-fledged autonomy platform built with drones front and center.

XTEND is doubling down on one of the biggest challenges in modern warfare: how to stop hostile drones, without making things worse in the process. The AI-driven robotics company, backed by Eric Trump, has announced a new partnership with ParaZero Technologies as part of its broader $1.5 billion public-market merger. Together, the companies are rolling out a fully autonomous drone interception system that can detect, chase, and capture enemy drones mid-air using a physical net. Yes, a net.

Earlier this month, multiple drones impeded Barksdale Air Force Base’s airspace, endangering airborne planes and grounding the base’s aircraft until the drones were gone. While this sort of incursion is not uncommon and usually is a result of unaware enthusiasts, the Department of Defense believes this was a more sophisticated and targeted act against Barksdale.

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about the use of drones in Ukraine by both sides of the conflict but over the last year, a new type of drone has begun being used to counter anti-UAV activities. However, the side effects are starting to show their downside.

Last month, Sikorsky unveiled the U-Hawk concept, a complete unmanned Black Hawk that can be operated with nothing but a tablet. But that’s not the only drone move the legacy aviation company is working on.

Drones are big business right now if you’re a defense contractor, building drones, designing new drones, and trying to compete with drones coming out of Ukraine and Russia. However, the bigger concern is countering drones, and the Army has a new toy to test out.

American drone company Red Cat is teaming up with Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero) to ramp up production of its military-grade Black Widow drone. The move comes as demand for the compact reconnaissance drone grows both in the US and abroad.

In a major push to enhance Europe’s drone defense capabilities, Maxar Intelligence and Saab have announced a strategic partnership focused on the development of next-generation autonomous systems for multi-domain military operations, including drones that don’t rely on GPS.

As nations continue to learn and develop new systems, the US military is starting to change its purchasing tactics away from more tanks to more drones. Both the US Army and Marines have various test units working through new squad formations, drone equipment, and tactics to learn from Ukraine’s success with drones on the battlefield.

General Atomics announced recently that it’s working towards getting the newly named YFQ-42A unmanned fighter flying this summer. That starts with ground tests, which began this month.

California-based battery company Lyten has announced a new national security initiative to help power next-generation defense drones using its lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery technology. The goal: to support US military and aerospace needs with batteries that are lightweight, high-performance, and sourced entirely from within the United States.

California-based drone maker Skydio has delivered its first batch of X10D drones to a deploying US Army unit as part of Tranche 2 of the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program. The company announced that hundreds of its drones were shipped within just five days of receiving the order — an urgent request from a unit preparing for imminent deployment.

In a world where access to GPS on the battlefield can win or lose a fight, Maxar is working on a solution for when having it just isn’t an option. Called Raptor, the product uses satellite mapping to build a 3D globe that can serve as an alternative to GPS.