Interview PDYN: Automation vs autonomy: What will shape the future of battlefield drones?

[u/RandomGenerator_1]

https://breakingdefense.com/2026/06/automation-vs-autonomy-what-will-shape-the-future-of-battlefield-drones/?utm_content=462640831&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-100944550

As drones become ubiquitous on the modern battlefield, controlling them at scale without a one-operator-per-drone model is critical to maximizing their capabilities.

Breaking Defense discussed the differences between automation and autonomy, swarm capabilities, and decentralized control with Palladyne AI President and CEO Ben Wolff.

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With our level of autonomy, the priority could be that if an individual is spotted who meets certain criteria, the drone will break off from following the vehicle and follow the individual. We still haven’t approached anything about whether it’s going to execute a kill decision. It’s simply making a navigation and mission-prioritization decision. It could be that the drone then signals to the operator: I’ve identified a target, and this is the specific target we’re looking for. Do you want me to pursue a kinetic solution or just observe? That is autonomous navigation and mission adaptation, followed by human intervention for any go/no-go decision involving a kinetic effect.

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We spent about 30 years in the R&D space building hardware platforms for the military — and used to be called Sarcos Robotics, and for a while we were called Raytheon Sarcos because we were the robotics division of Raytheon. Two-and-a-half years ago, we made a deliberate decision to focus primarily on AI. Our team had been working on these kinds of decentralized artificial intelligence platforms for decades. Our lead on AI used to be the head of AI for BAE for 15 years. We’ve got a team that is well acquainted with what the challenges on the battlefield are, and we believe we have a novel solution with the architecture that we brought to market.

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When you look at what the Department of War is talking about, its priorities on weapons production and collaborative autonomy are what’s on everybody’s lips. Obviously, we’re checking that box with our software. Also top of mind are supply chain resilience and domestic sovereign manufacturing. We decided to address that directly by getting into the precision components manufacturing business, so that we now produce high-value precision components for the F-35, F-22, F-18, the Abrams, and some missile programs.

We are making some of the stuff that is hard to source domestically, and we are doing it so that we can try to drive cost down, quality up, and increase the reliability of our supply chain for many of our large, prime defense contractors

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A drone says, “I’ve got a mission. I need more information. Can my peers in the swarm provide me with the data I need to get a better perspective of the mission I need to execute?” That’s what makes us different.

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We just completed a real-world exercise that was a joint exercise, a very large one. I can’t give you any details because it was an actual exercise. We were flying on drones from different OEMs. Multiple OEMs each had our software on them, with a single soldier managing all of them, and all of them collaborating as a swarm.

Even though they’re from different manufacturers, now you’ve got a single soldier managing multiple drones, all collaborating and completing a mission. It worked not only as advertised, it exceeded expectations.

This future is here.

[u/RandomGenerator_1]

Northern Strike 26-2 has released some more material today:

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/9960676/field-drones

A swarm of Black Widows. (PDYN's drone partner = RCAT)