Naomi Cooper
The Defense Innovation Unit and the U.S. Air Force have selected four companies to build and demonstrate an unmanned aerial vehicle prototype that will serve as a foundation for low-cost, high-rate production and deployment of new drone technologies across the Department of Defense.
DIU said Monday that Anduril Industries, Integrated Solutions for Systems, Leidos‘ Dynetics subsidiary and Zone 5 Technologies were chosen from over 100 commercial and dual-use technology vendors to compete for the Enterprise Test Vehicle project.
The contractors will develop prototypes and conduct flight demonstrations in late summer or fall, after which one or multiple prototypes will be downselected for continued development.
DIU partnered with the Air Force Armament Directorate to identify and prototype commercial and dual-use technologies designed to enable DOD to accelerate drone production while minimizing costs.
The Air Force Research Laboratory, Special Operations Command, Naval Air Systems Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command are among the ETV project collaborators and evaluators.
