METHODOLOGY

How we research and check our work.

Drone Intelligence publishes research built from public sources: official records, company filings and specialist reporting. This page sets out how we choose sources, check claims, separate fact from our own assessment, and correct mistakes. It applies to briefings, reference pages and commissioned research.

Everything we publish is also queryable by AI tools over the Model Context Protocol, with the same sourcing carried through. Connect your tools.

SOURCE HIERARCHY

Five source categories.

We use five source categories to guide our review. We assess each claim for directness, relevance and corroboration. A source’s category alone does not establish whether a claim is true.

TIER 01

Primary regulatory and government sources

Federal Register filings, Companies House records, FAA dockets, EASA opinions, EU AI Act documentation, congressional testimony, contract awards on SAM.gov, MoD procurement notices, and the official acquisition pages of armed services and equivalent regulatory bodies in the jurisdictions we cover. These are the highest-weight sources in our hierarchy.

TIER 02

Direct corporate disclosure

Earnings transcripts, 10-K and 10-Q filings, S-1 prospectuses, press releases on company-controlled domains, investor presentations, and official statements from named spokespeople. Used as evidence of what a company says about itself, and attributed to the company.

TIER 03

Specialist trade press

DefenseScoop, Breaking Defense, Defense News, Janes, FlightGlobal, Inside Unmanned Systems, sUAS News, Aviation Week, The War Zone, Reuters defence coverage, the Financial Times, and Bloomberg defence reporting. Where a report rests on an official record or company disclosure, we go to that record. Where it does not, we attribute the claim to the outlet.

TIER 04

Industry analysis and commentary

Think tank papers (RAND, CSIS, RUSI), academic publications, and named-author analysis from credentialled commentators. These inform context and are attributed to their authors. They do not establish fact on their own.

TIER 05

Commercial market estimates

Market-sizing and forecast providers such as Mordor Intelligence, Grand View Research, MarketsandMarkets, and Defence Insight. We use these comparatively, never as established fact: every figure is attributed to its provider inline, definitions and base years are surfaced, and where providers disagree materially we show the disagreement and what drives it rather than selecting one number silently.

For the wider landscape these tiers draw on, see our annotated directories of drone market research and intelligence firms and drone industry newsletters and publications.

VERIFICATION

What every claim must clear before we publish.

A claim that does not pass these checks is either attributed to its source and worded accordingly, or left out.

TEST 01

Source trace

Every factual claim names its source. Where an official record or company disclosure exists, we go to it. Where the only basis is trade press or an analyst, the claim is attributed to them in the text. Claims we cannot trace to any named source are not published.

TEST 02

Second source

Figures, dates, contract values and names are checked against a second source where one exists. Where there is only one source, the claim is attributed to it rather than stated as settled fact.

TEST 03

URL resolution

Cited links are checked when a page is published or updated, and broken links are fixed when we find them. Each page shows when it was last updated.

CONFIDENCE

We separate fact from assessment from forecast.

Mixing these up is a common problem in sector analysis. We keep them apart in the wording so the reader can weigh each one.

Documented fact

Supported by records appropriate to the claim. Company forecasts, capacity claims and performance statements remain attributed to the company unless independently established.

Reported claim

Comes from a company, trade press, an analyst or a market-estimate provider and has not been independently established. Attributed to its source in the text.

Assessment

Our own reading, drawn from the sources but going beyond what any one of them says. Written as our view, not as fact.

Forecast

Forward-looking projection. Identified as a forecast, with the assumptions on which it depends made explicit.

EDITORIAL STANDARDS

What we publish, and what we do not.

Signal Dossier briefings cover one strategic development at a time. Intelligence pages are evergreen references that we update when the underlying picture shifts. We publish on a defined cadence rather than on a publication treadmill.

Our scope is the autonomous systems sector across six segments: hardware platforms, autonomy software and AI flight, airspace and UTM, logistics operators, defence and government procurement, and counter-UAS. Geographic depth concentrates on the UK, EU, US and Israel, and on how the war in Ukraine is shaping procurement and industry.

WHAT WE DO NOT PUBLISH

Anonymous tips that cannot be independently corroborated.
Claims whose original reporting or supporting evidence we cannot identify.
Forecasts without stated assumptions.
Targeting, weapons-use or operational counter-drone advice. We cover markets, spending, regulation and companies, not how to use or defeat systems.
Coverage of companies, jurisdictions, or technologies that fall outside our defined sector scope.
News for the sake of being current.

CORRECTIONS

When we get something wrong, we correct it on the page.

We fix errors on the affected page. Where a correction changes a briefing’s assessment, we say so on the page.

RAISE A FACTUAL ISSUE

If you believe something we have published is incorrect, contact us with the briefing URL, the specific claim, and the source you believe contradicts it. We respond to all substantiated correction requests.