METHODOLOGY

How we synthesise intelligence.

Drone Intelligence converts noisy primary-source material into structured analysis that decision-makers can act on. This page documents how we do that. It is the standard every briefing, intelligence page, and advisory output we publish is held to.

SOURCE HIERARCHY

Four tiers, in descending order of weight.

We work from a four-tier source taxonomy. The hierarchy determines how each source is weighted in our analysis and whether a claim drawn from it can stand on its own.

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 verified official statements from named spokespeople. Used as primary evidence for company-level claims.

TIER 03

Verified 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. We treat these as confirmation sources rather than originating sources, and trace every claim back to its primary basis where one exists.

TIER 04

Industry analysis and commentary

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

Sources outside this hierarchy do not appear in our briefings.

VERIFICATION

What every claim must clear before we publish.

A claim that cannot satisfy all three tests below is either rewritten with explicit attribution and confidence labelling, or held back from publication.

TEST 01

Source trace

Every claim must trace to a Tier 1 or Tier 2 source that we have read in full. Aggregated reporting where the primary basis cannot be located is not published.

TEST 02

Cross-verification

Every figure, date, contract value, and named entity is cross-verified against at least one independent source where one exists. Single-source claims are flagged in the text.

TEST 03

URL resolution

Every URL we cite resolves at the time of publication, and we record the date of last verification. Broken citations are corrected on detection.

CONFIDENCE

We separate fact from assessment from forecast.

Confusing these categories is the most common failure mode in sector analysis. We label each statement clearly so the reader can apply their own weight to it.

Established fact

Verified through Tier 1 or Tier 2 sources. Stated declaratively without hedging.

Reported claim

Sourced from Tier 3 or Tier 4 but not independently confirmed. Always attributed to the originating source.

Assessment

Our analytical judgement, drawn from multiple verified sources but going beyond what any single source states. Always identified as our assessment.

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, with operational tracking of relevant theatres including Ukraine.

WHAT WE DO NOT PUBLISH

Anonymous tips that cannot be independently corroborated.
Aggregated secondary reporting where we cannot trace the primary source.
Forecasts unsupported by named verifiable assumptions.
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.

Substantive corrections that change a briefing’s assessment are flagged in the next edition of the Signal Dossier and recorded in a dated correction log on the affected page. We treat correction discipline as a credibility input, not a sign of weakness.

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.