Ukrainian interceptor drones join Pentagon test at Yuma

Four defense-tech companies integrated an AI-enabled sensor, an unmanned helicopter, Ukrainian-made interceptor drones and tactical radios into a single counter-drone system, then tested it at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, during a Pentagon exercise called Falcon Peak 26.2.

DataShapes AI, Evolved Aerospace, General Cherry and Persistent Systems built the combined system in about three weeks, according to Sarah Cuellar, vice president of strategic partnerships at DataShapes AI.

DataShapes AI contributed AI-based radio-frequency sensing built on its GlobalEdge platform. Evolved Aerospace brought a long-endurance unmanned helicopter. Persistent Systems supplied tactical communications gear. General Cherry provided what Cuellar described as combat-certified interceptor drones developed in Ukraine. Pilots and range-testing personnel from Yuma’s Red Team ran the demonstration.

DataShapes AI said the combined system killed drones during testing and fed targeting data into the government’s Lattice command-and-control system, a step the company said no other participant at the broader exercise accomplished. That detail indicates Falcon Peak 26.2 involved more companies than the four that worked together on this particular integration. DataShapes AI also credited Weapons & Tactics Alliance Group, an electronic-warfare support firm, with providing last-minute technical help during the buildup to the test.

Photo by Sarah Cuellar

Falcon Peak is the name the Pentagon has used since 2024 for a recurring series of counter-small-drone experiments, run in earlier iterations by U.S. Northern Command and the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Army-led organization the Department of War set up to speed up counter-drone technology across the military and law enforcement. Past Falcon Peak events were held at Fort Carson, Colorado, in October 2024 and at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in September 2025.

Photo by Joe Edwards

General Cherry, founded in Ukraine in September 2023, has become the country’s leading maker of interceptor drones, with 33 products codified for Ukrainian military use and the first AQAP 2110 NATO quality certification awarded to a Ukrainian drone company. Cuellar said the company can produce up to 100,000 interceptors a month; other published accounts of the company’s output put current production at more than 70,000 drones a month across its full product line. General Cherry has separate agreements underway to build drones in the United States with New Hampshire-based Wilcox Industries and in Croatia with Orqa.

General Cherry said this month that its Bullet interceptor has become the first General Cherry product integrated into the Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator, a training platform known as UFDS Military. Ukrainian service members can now train on the Bullet in simulation before flying it for real, and access to that training is free for military personnel. Troops who finish the simulator course can move on to a separate, free hands-on course on the company’s interceptors run by the Dignitas Fund, a Ukrainian charitable foundation. Civilians can also use the simulator to learn the system from scratch. It remains unclear whether Bullet or another General Cherry interceptor was the system used at Yuma.

DataShapes AI, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, builds software that analyzes radio-frequency signals to detect drones and other threats. The company said in May 2026 that it was the artificial-intelligence partner behind L3Harris’s Wraith Shield system, which adds drone-sensing capability to existing tactical radios.