AV Unleashes Red Dragon: A New Breed of Fully Autonomous, GPS-Denied One-Way Attack Unmanned Aircraft Systems

By: AeroVironment, Inc. via Business Wire

May 06, 2025 at 08:30 AM EDT

Pioneering a New Class of Autonomous Systems Built for GPS-Denied, High-Threat Environments

AeroVironment, Inc. (“AV”) (NASDAQ: AVAV) today announced the launch of Red Dragon™, a fully autonomous capable, software-defined unmanned aircraft system (UAS) designed for one-way attack missions in high-threat, GPS-denied, and communications-degraded environments. Developed as part of AV’s expanding portfolio of tactical autonomy, Red Dragon is built on AV’s AVACORE™ shared software architecture—enabling rapid development, scalable manufacturing, and modular mission integration. AV’s industry-leading SPOTR-Edge™ perception system enables detection and classification of targets to aid the operator in making decisions with confidence via AV’s proprietary DDIL radio system.

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Red Dragon one-way attack UAS launches—bringing the future of autonomous precision strike capabilities to the battlefield today. [Photo: AV]

Red Dragon delivers a combination of autonomy, electronic warfare resilience, and tactical flexibility previously unavailable in its class. It is designed to penetrate contested airspace and operate effectively in denied, disrupted, intermittent, and low-bandwidth (DDIL) environments. The system is capable of autonomous execution of mission objectives without reliance on continuous operator input or satellite navigation.

Designed for manufacturing at scale, Red Dragon enables mass production, rapid deployment, and simplified logistics to meet operational demands. It is optimized for cross-domain use—across air, land, and maritime—and is designed so small teams can be trained quickly and effectively.

“Red Dragon represents a significant step forward in autonomous lethality,” said Jeff Rodrian, Executive Vice President, MacCready Works. “By combining advanced autonomy, GNSS-independent navigation, and mass producibility, Red Dragon delivers a mission-ready system designed for today’s contested battlespace. It is the first of a new generation of autonomous systems built for scale, speed, and operational relevance.”

“At AV, our mission is to change the way wars are fought—by putting the safety, survivability, and operational advantage of our warfighters first,” said Wahid Nawabi, President & CEO of AV. “Red Dragon reflects the kind of breakthrough capability that ensures U.S. and allied forces stay ahead in an increasingly complex threat environment. It’s not just about autonomy—it’s about delivering trusted, mission-defining technologies that protect lives and reshape the future of defense.”

Red Dragon is the first in a rapidly growing family of platforms under development at AV with a common software and hardware architecture for mission-specific variants. Each shares a common software and autonomy architecture designed to support rapid evolution across domains and use cases. This enables evolutions at the speed of software and warfare.

ABOUT AV

AV (NASDAQ: AVAV) is a defense technology leader delivering integrated capabilities across air, land, sea, space, and cyber. The company develops and deploys autonomous systems, precision strike systems, counter-UAS technologies, space-based platforms, directed energy systems, and cyber and electronic warfare capabilities—built to meet the mission needs of today’s warfighter and tomorrow’s conflicts. With a national manufacturing footprint and a deep innovation pipeline, AV delivers proven systems and future-defining capabilities with speed, scale, and operational relevance.

For more information visit: www.avinc.com.

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are made on the basis of current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors outside of our control, that may cause our business, strategy or actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, our ability to perform under existing contracts and obtain additional contracts; changes in the regulatory environment; the activities of competitors; failure of the markets in which we operate to grow; failure to expand into new markets; failure to develop new products or integrate new technology with current products; and general economic and business conditions in the United States and elsewhere in the world. For a further list and description of such risks and uncertainties, see the reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.