Pentagon picks 25 vendors to show off one-way attack drones in the Gauntlet competition

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is asking 25 companies to demo their unmanned one-way attack drones at an upcoming evaluation event that will help determine a future prototype buy, it announced today.

As part of the first phase of the Drone Dominance Program, the Department of Defense said it will conduct “the Gauntlet” from mid-February into March at Fort Benning, Ga. There, military operators will fly and evaluate the “low cost” drones to help decide who receives a share of orders expected to total $150 million. 

Those that make the cut will then have five months to deliver the aerial weapons to the military. 

“Drone Dominance operationalizes the Secretary of War’s acquisition reform priorities by sending a clear demand signal to industry — $1.1 billion over four phases, placing warfighters at the center of evaluation, and driving competitive, iterative cycles measured in months, not years,” the Pentagon announcement said. “Across the program’s four phases, unit prices decrease, production volumes increase, and operational capability rises.”

Details about the upcoming test plan come following an early June 2025 executive order from the White House dubbed Unleashing American Drone Domination, focusing more broadly on commercial UAS. The next month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth inked his own Unleashing US Military Drone Dominance memo in which he directed every Army squad to be armed with small, one-way attack drones by the end of fiscal 2026.

“While global military drone production skyrocketed over the last three years, the previous administration deployed red tape,” Hegseth wrote at the time. “US units are not outfitted with the lethal small drones the modern battlefield requires.”

“The directives […] support our industrial base, reform acquisition, and field new technology for the warfighter,” he added. “Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions, especially when it comes to harnessing technologies we invented but were slow to pursue.”

Acquiring small, expendable drones have become a focal point for the US Army and it has moved out with a new Purpose Built Attritable System initiative and recently held an industry day for companies that can produce small drones under $2,000.

According to the DoD, the 25 companies selected for the next stage of the Drone Dominance Program are:

• ANNO.AI, INC.
• ASCENT AEROSYSTEMS INC
• AUTERION GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS INC
• DZYNE TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• EWING AEROSPACE LLC
• FARAGE PRECISION, LLC
• FIRESTORM LABS, INC.
• GENERAL CHERRY CORP
• GREENSIGHT INC.
• GRIFFON AEROSPACE, INC.
• HALO AERONAUTICS, LLC
• KRATOS SRE, INC.
• MODALAI, INC.
• NAPATREE TECHNOLOGY LLC
• NEROS, INC.
• OKSI VENTURES, INC.
• PALADIN DEFENSE SERVICES LLC
• PERFORMANCE DRONE WORKS LLC
• RESPONSIBLY LTD
• SWARM DEFENSE TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• TEAL DRONES INC
• UKRAINIAN DEFENSE DRONES TECH CORP
• VECTOR DEFENSE, INC
• W S DARLEY & CO
• XTEND REALITY INC.