Jane Edwards
The Defense Innovation Unit and the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment have announced the addition of several small unmanned aircraft systems to the Department of Defense’s cleared list of drones as part of the second iteration of the Blue sUAS project.
The approved drones are Intense Eye V2 from Blue Halo; WingtraOne from Wingtra; Spirit from Ascent AeroSystems; eBee Tac from senseFly; and AltaX from Freefly Systems, DIU said Friday.
DOD will not require these cleared unmanned platforms to secure an exception to policy to buy or operate since these drones have undergone an NDAA compliance check and cybersecurity assessment.
“The Blue UAS Cleared List will provide a common approval standard that can save the Services time and money, inform acquisition policy updates, and make it easier for troops to gain access to previously inaccessible commercial tech,” said David Michelson, DIU program manager for Blue UAS.
“Blue sUAS 2.0 vendors have been great partners while we prototype this new process for commercial-off-the-shelf sUAS,” Michelson added.
In October 2011, DIU signed agreements with 11 nontraditional contractors to take part in a pilot program that seeks to prototype an approval process to facilitate the onboarding of small drones while expanding the availability of new capabilities to all service branches.
