Parrot passes milestone in US Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance drone program

Air April 17, 2020

Parrot has passed another milestone in the United States Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance drone program.

As the final steps of this selection process, Parrot will participate in an operational assessment to support an Army production award decision.

In anticipation of an increased demand signal from the Department of Defence, the Company will start manufacturing prototypes of its dedicated drone in the United States of America.

The mature prototype presented by Parrot has now been approved for initial manufacturing. To support the Company’s commitment to US industry capabilities, Parrot is currently finalising its US production chain with its partner NEOTech to build its final prototype batch for delivery to the US Army and the Defense Innovation Unit in July 2020.

“Parrot is honoured to work with the DoD on this highly strategic project,” said Laurent Rouchon, VP Security & Defence at Parrot. “We have successfully met the high standards set over the last 12 months on the prototype efforts and we look forward to entering this final phase and launching production in the USA.”

In April 2019, the US Army and the Defence Innovation Unit selected Parrot and 5 additional commercial drone manufacturers to develop Short Range Reconnaissance prototype drones for military use. As a result of the award, the Company developed a prototype of the drone between May and November of 2019.

Parrot focused the company’s Paris based research and development efforts toward engineering a drone dedicated to the US Army specifications. A prototype unit was finalised in November 2019, and the initial testing phase continued through January 2020. The initial positive results have encouraged the Company to begin exploring the industrialisation phase in early 2020.

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Parrot Short Range Reconnaissance drone program US DoD