INDEPENDENT RESEARCH
Intelligence for the drone economy.
Source-traced intelligence for investors and strategy teams evaluating drone, counter-UAS, and defence-autonomy companies. Know what is real, what is claimed, and what to investigate next.
SERVICE 01
Monitor the market
The weekly Signal Dossier and sector reference pages: regulatory shifts, platform developments, contract awards, and capital flows, with every material claim sourced.
SERVICE 02
Interrogate the market
Company records, market maps, and procurement trackers across counter-UAS, defence autonomy, and the wider drone economy. Compare vendors on evidence, not marketing.
SERVICE 03
Make a decision
The five-day Decision Brief: one company, one decision question, a source-traced written assessment of what is verified, what is claimed, and what to investigate next. £999.
INSIGHTS
The Signal Dossier
Two Drone Markets, Two Clocks: Defence Is Buying Now, Civilian Delivery Expands With Washington Undecided
The Pentagon aims to acquire more than 200,000 drones by 2027 and plans to buy about 60,000 from its Gauntlet II vendors, DefenseScoop reports. On the civilian side, Wing and Walmart will add Denver and Seattle in 2027, with drone delivery planned from more than 270 Walmart stores. But the FAA's beyond-visual-line-of-sight rule has been under White House review since 10 July, and 15 states and Harris County, Texas are challenging the FAA's national environmental finding for drone package delivery in the Second Circuit. On DI analysis, defence orders are the nearer-term revenue, and two open federal questions could affect the pace of civilian scale.
Gauntlet II: The Pentagon Picked Its Drone Builders. Now They Have to Deliver
Neros Technologies announced a 14,000-drone order valued at over $100 million through Gauntlet II of the Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program on 30 September, plus 800 bonus drones reallocated from Gauntlet I vendors that missed their production deadline, per the company. Perennial Autonomy topped Deep Strike. With about 60 per cent of Gauntlet I drones delivered by late August, per DroneXL, and a 400-drone delivery gate now set before Gauntlet III, per the programme, production has become, on DI analysis, the programme's binding test.
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Sector Reference Pages
Jet-Powered Drones 2026: Attack, Interceptor and Target Market
Jet-powered drones have moved from a niche of target aircraft and prototypes to a large share of the one-way attack fleet. Ukrainian military intelligence put Russian output of the turbojet Geran-4 and Geran-5 at about 3,000 a month in August 2026 (as reported by Euronews and the Kyiv Independent), Ukraine shot down 57% of jet-powered drones according to President Zelensky on 28 September 2026, and the interceptor response is itself going to jets.
MARKET INTELLIGENCEFibre-Optic Drones 2026: Fiber-Optic FPV Range, Cost, Counters
Fibre-optic FPV drones replace the radio link with a trailing glass fibre, which defeats radio-frequency jamming. First fielded by Russia in spring 2024 and adopted by Ukraine almost immediately, they now reach 30 to 40 kilometres behind the line, cost roughly USD 1,200 for a drone with up to 10 kilometres of range per a Ukrainian battalion commander, have appeared in Lebanon, and have led the UK Ministry of Defence to ask industry for counter-measures that do not depend on jamming a radio link.
MARKET INTELLIGENCECollaborative Combat Aircraft Market 2026: CCA Programmes
The US Air Force put collaborative combat aircraft into production on 17 June 2026, ordering at least 150 General Atomics FQ-42A and Anduril FQ-44A by the end of the decade against a cost goal of roughly less than USD 30 million a tail. SNS Insider values the market at USD 900 million in 2025, rising to USD 2.8 billion by 2035 at 12% a year, and MarketsandMarkets reaches a similar figure. Increment 2 has nine vendors in concept refinement and a pool of more than 20 eligible for the design phase.
Evidence position
SAMPLE, ONE COMPANY, 16 MATERIAL CLAIMS REVIEWED
Supported by official records
9 claims
Company-stated only
5 claims
Contradicted or unresolved
2 claims
Every conclusion traces to a classified source: official record, company statement, independent reporting, or our own assessment, each labelled. Where the evidence is contradicted or missing, the screen says so and lists the questions to put to management.
Commission a Decision Brief →THE DECISION BRIEF
Know what is real before the deal moves.
One company, one decision question, five working days.
A written screen with a source ledger: what is verified, what is only claimed, what is contradicted.
A 30-minute walkthrough, and the questions your next management meeting should ask.
OUR METHODOLOGY
How we synthesize data.
SIGNAL CAPTURE
Global monitoring of regulatory filings, patents, and procurement tenders.
CLAIM VERIFICATION
Every material claim traced to a classified source and checked against the record. Specialist technical review is commissioned where an engagement requires it.
STRATEGIC SYNTHESIS
Connecting technical shifts to macroeconomic consequences and competitive risk.
ACTIONABLE OUTPUT
Findings distilled into written assessments designed for board and investment-committee use, with uncertainty stated rather than smoothed over.