NATO
Every UASFeed story on NATO — across defense, counter-UAS, industry, commercial, policy, and tech, newest first.
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Industry & Contracts
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems: The Company That Built the Armed Drone Era
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is the private, family-controlled company that built the Predator, Reaper, and Gray Eagle — and is now in production on the FQ-42A, one of the first uncrewed aircraft to carry a fighter designation in U.S. military history.
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Defense & Combat
AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma AE: The Hand-Launched ISR Platform That Lands in the Ocean
AeroVironment's RQ-20 Puma AE is a hand-launched, battery-electric small UAS that operates from ship decks to desert outposts, delivering day/night ISR without a runway. A two-decade operational record and front-line deployments in Ukraine make it the Group 1/2 benchmark for allied militaries worldwide.
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Defense & Combat
Russia's S-70 Okhotnik: Inside the Stealth UCAV That Shot Itself Down
Russia's most advanced stealth UCAV was destroyed by what open-source analysis indicates was likely its own Su-57 escort over Donetsk in October 2024. The armed wreckage handed NATO a technical intelligence windfall — and exposed a program running three production-deadline slips behind schedule.
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Defense & Combat
Watchkeeper WK450: Britain's £1.35 Billion Tactical Drone, Explained
The British Army's Watchkeeper WK450 spent fourteen years reaching full operational capability, lost eight of fifty-four airframes, and cost £1.35 billion before being retired nearly two decades ahead of schedule. A deep read on what went wrong — and what it means for Western tactical-UAS procurement.
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Counter-UAS
France Selects Origin Robotics' BLAZE Interceptor and Brings Production Home
France's DGA has chosen Latvia's Origin Robotics BLAZE autonomous interceptor for its armed forces, with French integrator DSV establishing local assembly under a technology transfer deal — making France the fourth European operator of the combat-proven C-UAS system.
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Tech & Builds
KNDS Debuts ISO-Container Drone Swarm Launcher at Eurosatory, Marrying Strike and Intercept in One Box
French-German defense giant KNDS unveiled a containerized drone launcher prototype at Eurosatory 2026, fitting dozens to 100+ Helsing strike drones and Tytan interceptors inside a single standard shipping container — one year after Ukraine proved the concept in combat.
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Defense & Combat
The ZALA Lancet: Inside Russia's Most Effective Loitering Munition
From its distinctive double-X wing geometry to the contested AI claims and the container-launched Product-53 successor, a technical breakdown of the loitering munition that has hunted more Western-supplied artillery in Ukraine than any other single Russian system.
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Defense & Combat
Pocket ISR: How Nano and Micro Drones Rewired Squad-Level Reconnaissance
From a 16-gram helicopter checking walls in Afghanistan to a 70-gram system with thermal imaging deployed across 50 countries, nano-UAS technology has pushed intelligence collection down to the fire team — and the next frontier is autonomous swarms constrained by battery physics.
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Defense & Combat
RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-4C Triton: America's Eyes at 60,000 Feet, Explained
The RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-4C Triton are the U.S. military's primary high-altitude, long-endurance ISR platforms — one headed for retirement after a decade of Congressional standoffs, the other cementing its role as the Navy's maritime surveillance backbone through the 2030s.
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Tech & Builds
eVTOL, Drone, UAV, UAS, RPAS: A Precise Guide to Six Terms That Aren't Interchangeable
Six overlapping terms describe aircraft that fly without an on-board human — or sometimes with one. Which label applies determines which regulations govern you, how DoD classifies a platform, and whether a Joby air taxi is legally a drone at all.
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Counter-UAS
Listening for Drones: How Acoustic Detection Works — and Where It Falls Short
Acoustic microphone arrays can detect drones by their blade-passing frequencies from hundreds of meters away using beamforming and AI classification. Ukraine's 24,000-sensor network shows what the technology can do at scale — and reveals the hard limits of listening alone.
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Counter-UAS
Net Capture Systems: The Case for Catching Drones Instead of Destroying Them
Kinetic destruction and RF jamming both carry unacceptable collateral risks in civilian airspace. A new generation of net-capture systems — compressed-air launchers and autonomous interceptor hexacopters — offers a low-debris, forensics-preserving alternative built for populated environments.
