The US military has awarded a California-based drone manufacturer Skydio a $20 million-a-year contract as part of its effort to move away from foreign-made, commercially available drones.
The company revealed - in a press release - that it will provide its X2D drones with the US Army's short-range reconnaissance program known as "SSR".
The program aims to provide soldiers with rapidly deployable aerial solutions that can conduct surveillance and reconnaissance activities at short ranges, the SSR program was considering the use of small drones, more than 30 vendors submitted their bids to the military, and 5 finalists were selected for rigorous testing.
The minimum specification of the SSR program includes a flight time of at least 30 minutes, a range of 1.86 nautical miles (3 km), and the ability to withstand winds of up to 15 knots.
With the sole purpose of reconnaissance, the drone does not need interchangeable payloads, but must support mapping missions and the ability to geotag images.
The Skydio X2D drone features dual-color thermal-optical sensors capable of capturing 4K video clips, and is equipped with GPS-based night reconnaissance equipment. Which makes it suitable for various operations around the clock.
The drone has a flight time of 35 minutes at a top speed of 25 mph (40 km/h), and uses artificial intelligence features to avoid obstacles and detect the target.
The aircraft's light weight makes it easy to use and carry, weighing just under 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms), and has the ability to fold itself and reduce its dimensions. The company says the folded plane can be prepared for take-off in less than 75 seconds.
The console weighs a few hundred grams and comes with a screen that can transmit 720p video clips while connected to the drone within a 4-mile (6-kilometre) range.
In addition to its technical capabilities, an important consideration that likely gave Skydio the advantage is that its drones are “designed and assembled” in the United States. In 2017, the US military banned the use of drones from the famous Chinese company, DJI. In this area due to security concerns, the military took another step last year to ban drones or their subsystems obtained from hostile countries.
However, this is not the first purchase of small drones the US military has made. In June 2020, the military also placed an order for pocket-sized drones that weigh barely an ounce (33 grams) and have a flight time of 25 minutes.