• Contract award funded by U.S. Government fiscal year 2019 appropriations

• Raven systems support U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Special Operations Command, National Guard and more than 25 defense forces around the globe

• Raven lightweight small unmanned aircraft system is designed for rapid deployment to deliver real-time tactical situational awareness

SIMI VALLEY, Calif., Aug. 19, 2019 – AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV), a global leader in unmanned aircraft systems for both defense and commercial applications, today announced it received a firm fixed-price contract award on July 25, 2019 valued at $45,190,881 for RQ-11B Raven® small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and initial spares packages. AeroVironment received the contract award from the United States Army for its Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB). Delivery is anticipated by January 2020.

The SFAB are specialized units with the core mission to conduct training, advising, assisting, enabling and accompanying operations with allied and partner nations.

“Raven is the most widely deployed small unmanned aircraft system in the United States Department of Defense’s fleet,” said Rick Pedigo, vice president, sales and business development for AeroVironment. “Our family of small unmanned aircraft systems supports all U.S. military services and more than 45 allied nations.  Every day, AeroVironment small UAS provide the actionable intelligence our customers need to proceed with certainty.”

In a report published by the United States Army on July 24, 2019, Sgt. Jordan Aguiar, a cavalry scout assigned to Alpha Troop of the 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry Regiment, said the Raven is more agile and less detectable than larger and more costly unmanned aircraft.  Soldiers use it to conduct battlefield reconnaissance and provide their units with a greater level of security.  Sgt. Foluke Marsh added, “If you need to have eyes on a target, or eyes on a convoy to make sure everything is safe, it’s good to send out the Raven instead of risking someone getting hurt or killed.”

(Photo: TSgt John Winn)

AeroVironment RQ-11B Raven Small Unmanned Aircraft System designed for land-based operations (Photo: AeroVironment)

AeroVironment’s Raven is a fully man-portable, hand-launched small unmanned aircraft system designed for land-based operations. First adopted by the U.S. Army in 2005, Raven is now used by more than 25 countries across the globe. Weighing just over four pounds, with a wingspan of 4.5 feet and with a flying range of 10 kilometers, it is the most prolific small unmanned aircraft system deployed across the U.S. Department of Defense.  The Raven system provides operators with real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, delivering color or infrared video and still imagery to its operator via a hand-held ground control unit and to remote viewing stations, and uses a GPS system for pre-programmed or manual navigation.

Sydney, Australia – 2 August 2019 – DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO or DRO.AU) (“DroneShield”) is pleased to release a breakthrough new product, RfZeroTM, following extensive development in response to end-user feedback. The product is available for purchase from today to qualified end-users.

RfZeroTM is an omnidirectional drone detection device with a 1km range. It is designed to be a cost-effective fixed site alternative to DroneShield’s higher end product, RfOneTM (a 5km radiofrequency direction finder). As such, RfZeroTM responds to the needs of users with more substantial budgetary constraints. As is the case with the rest of DroneShield’s fixed site product family, RfZeroTM uses DroneShieldCompleteTM, DroneShield’s proprietary counterdrone software user interface. It is also able to integrate with the rest of the fixed site DroneShield product suite, such as DroneCannonTM for either automated or manual drone defeat, once RfZeroTM detects the drone.

Image: RfZeroTM

RfZeroTM is completely non-emitting, thus allowing for a substantially larger customer universe. Given that the product thus lacks this regulatory constraint, and is marketed at a lower price point, the product is expected to be of a substantial appeal to a wide array of customers.

Image: DroneShieldCompleteTM user interface and analytics capability

DroneShield’s CEO Oleg Vornik commented, “RfZeroTM is expected to appeal to a wide range of users looking for a more cost effective fixed site solution, complementing our RfOneTM high performance product. Typical target customers for RfZeroTM include prisons, VIPs, commercial sites, mining industry, events, and qualified corporate users, while airport and military customers generally find RfOneTM to be the more suitable offering. Following the recent releases of the pistol-shaped drone mitigation device DroneGun MKIIITM and the body-worn RfPatrolTM detection device, DroneShield is pleased to have the most extensive product offering on the market, developed based on the extensive customer feedback we received to date”.

DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) (“DroneShield” or the “Company”) is pleased to release a breakthrough new product, DroneGun MKIIITM, following extensive development in response to end-user feedback. The product is available for purchase from today to qualified end-users, where lawful (refer to note below).

DroneGun MKIIITM is a portable pistol-shape drone jammer, weighting under 2kg. The Company believes this product is peerless globally, for its combination of size and effectiveness.

Image: DroneShield’s DroneGun MKIIITM

DroneGun MKIIITM is designed to be an alternate rather than a replacing product for its highly successful DroneGun TacticalTM unit, having a shorter effective range of 500m versus 1-2km for DroneGun TacticalTM.

DroneGun MKIIITM can also be used in combination with other DroneShield products, including the RfPatrolTM body-worn detection device and the DroneSentinelTM stationary multi-sensor detection system.

Product overview can be found here.

Operational footage of DroneShield’s products in action is rare because of the security and secrecy concerns of its end-user militaries and security agencies. In a rare instance of publicly-available footage, our friends at the French military have released the footage of their demonstration of DroneGun Tactical™ at the Bastille Day (France’s national holiday) celebrations in Paris on 14th July.  You can see the footage here.

You can see from the video that the DroneGun is being deployed in a demonstration approximating a real deployment in front of the dignitaries (this is not an actual live deployment). DroneShield’s products were deployed among other cutting-edge defence technologies being used by the French military. Incidentally, you can also see that, illustrating the product’s usability, one of the units is being operated, with ease, by a soldier of slight physical build. 

We are proud of this, and many other, deployments of our products in mission-critical environments around the world.