Gauntlet II: The Pentagon Picked Its Drone Builders. Now They Have to Deliver

Neros delivered its full Gauntlet I order of 2,400 drones and had it accepted by July, which earned it a first bonus of 2,000 drones (DroneXL, citing Inside Unmanned Systems). The 800-drone award announced on 30 September is its second. Chief executive Soren Monroe-Anderson called Drone Dominance in the release “a test of two things: can competitors build high performance drones? And can they produce them in massive quantities with short notice?” Neros was building about 1,200 Archers a week in August, DroneXL reports, which by its calculation puts the 14,000-drone order at under three months of output.

Skycutter won Gauntlet I in March with 99.3 points. In Gauntlet II it scored 66.6 for fourth in Deep Strike, and its Close Quarters Battle entry missed the top five (DroneXL). As of July, the programme listed Skycutter and Napatree as the only two Gauntlet I winners neither ramping up nor shipping their ordered drones, according to DroneXL citing Aviation Tech Today. DroneXL also reports that the programme says Gauntlet II rankings rest on mission outcomes and operator ratings, and has not said whether a vendor's delivery record on an earlier order counts.

At the programme's Gauntlet II unit prices of $3,500 and $4,500, 14,000 drones cost between $49 million and $63 million, and the $4,500 Deep Strike price excluded weaponisation (DroneXL). On that arithmetic, DroneXL puts at least $37 million of Neros's $100 million-plus outside the airframes' list price, and notes the announcement gives no breakdown. Swarm Defense Technologies, fifth in Deep Strike, announced a 4,000-drone order worth at least $25 million including munitions and control software, about $6,250 a drone (DroneXL, citing The Defense Post).

The 14,000 figure matches the order ladder in the programme's April Request for Solutions, which set 8,000 drones for first place and 6,000 for third in each mission area (DroneXL, citing Aviation Tech Today). DroneXL's 19 September report adds that the programme says quantities are fixed at contract award rather than by leaderboard position. Per the company, the order covers Archer AI, a 10-inch drone with Terminal Guidance that flies itself to a target the operator selects, and the Archer 5-inch, optimised for close quarters battle in urban and indoor settings.

DefenseScoop lists the Deep Strike top five as Perennial Autonomy, Hyperscale, Neros, Skycutter and Swarm Defense Technologies. For Close Quarters Battle, citing the programme's website, it lists Neros, ORQA US, XTEND Reality, Vector and ModalAI. On the published lists, Neros is the only company on both. The finalists came through a qualifier at Camp Grayling, Michigan, where 49 companies competed (DroneXL and Defence Industry Europe). Each of the 19 finalists then delivered 120 drones fitted with live payloads, DroneXL reports.

DroneXL describes Perennial Autonomy as the company former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt started as White Stork, and reports that it won a three-year counter-drone contract worth up to $500 million from Joint Interagency Task Force 401 in May. Hyperscale, second in Deep Strike with 70.9 points, is harder to place. DroneXL's searches found no founder, location or airframe attached to the name.