Windlift, a North Carolina-based startup, recentlyannounced successful results from initial testing of a new autonomous tethered drone system that leverages winds aloft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and counter-uncrewed aerial systems (C-UAS).

Windlift's new "GUARD" system is a mobile platform that includes a launcher and a tethered drone equipped with a navigation system that autonomously leverages wind to maintain altitude and stability.

"GUARD is set to deliver performance far beyond what's possible today. Where most tethered drones struggle or fail in high winds, GUARD excels. As the wind increases, the GUARD platform, originally designed to harness the wind through complex flight patterns for airborne power generation, thrives," said Rob Creighton, Windlift Founder & CEO. "This breakthrough has been in the making for years, with technical oversight from the Naval Research Laboratory every step of the way. Initial testing marks a pivotal moment."

Creighton is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace& Defense Technology podcast to explain how Windlift's autonomous tethered drone system leverages wind to power a wide variety of defense applications.

During the Association for the United States Army (AUSA)2025 annualmeeting and exhibition, AimLock announced a partnership with Overland AI that will integrate their autonomous targeting and engagement systems into Overland’s new ULTRA autonomous ground vehicle.

The partnership announcement came following the U.S. Army’sselection of Overland AI for a vendor position in their UxS Autonomous Maneuver Program that will evaluate autonomous capabilities using upfits on their Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV).

“The evolution of autonomy on the battlefield is changingthe very nature of ground operations as we know it, and our systems are at the forefront of helping the warfighter prevail against the enemy,” said Bryan Bockmon, CEO of AimLock, commenting on their new partnership with Overland AI.

Bockmon is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace &Defense Technology podcast to discuss their new partnership with Overland AI and the future of autonomous targeting systems in modern warfare.

During the Association for the United States Army (AUSA)2025 annual meeting and exhibition, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll's opening keynote presentation provided a reality check on the type of technologies their soldiers are using on a daily basis.

While AUSA's annual exhibition featured some of the mostadvanced ground vehicles, drones and weapons systems available on the market, Driscoll said that most of the technologies the Army uses on a daily basis weredeveloped 30 years ago. According to Driscoll, "if small arms defined the 20th century, drones will define the 21st."

Listen to this episode of the Aerospace & DefenseTechnology podcast to hear selected portions from Driscoll’s AUSA 2025 opening keynote. In his keynote, Driscoll discusses the Army’s transition to a drone-centric future and an acquisition paradigm reshaped by Silicon Valley principles. He details how the service will contract with startups, accelerate AI/robotics/Drone prototyping, and shift from multi-yearprocurements to lean, iterative delivery in months and thousands rather than years and billions.

MGI Engineering recently unveiled their new long-rangeautonomous precision strike drone, TigerShark, at the 2025 Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) event in London.

MGI is a U.K.-based engineering consultancy founded byformer Formula 1 (F1) Chief Designer Mike Gacoyne. The company developed TigerShark in response to the growth in demand from defense customers for the top of low cost drones, one way effectors and loitering munitions that havebeen effectively used on both sides of the war in Ukraine.

Gascoyne is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace& Defense Technology podcast to explain how MGI is leveraging their history of collaborating with Formula 1 racing teams to design low cost precision strike drones that can be manufactured at scale.

On this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast, Fuse Integration CEO Sumner Lee is the guest to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) is re-defining how military communications and networks are leveraged in contested environments.

Lee is a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who founded FuseIntegration in 2010 with the goal of providing user-centric communications, networking and computing technologies for defense customers. Earlier this year, the company launched its new AI Radio Environment (AIRE) technology. AIRE provides an application interface for third-party AI developers to train onreal-time RF and network data models. By training on real-time data, third-party developers can create cutting-edge algorithms that learn better network routes, link prioritization or other key parameters to produce a more effective and resilient network.

Listen to this episode to learn how Fuse Integration isusing AI to ensure warfighters are connected when it matters most.

Piasecki Aircraft Corporation acquired the KARGO UAV program from Kaman Air Vehicles in April, and recently launched a new upgraded variant of the medium-lift autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicle, the KARGO II.

The KARGO II is a larger capacity version of the KARGO UAVwith increased payload capacity  "from approximately 500-800 lbs. (227-363kg) to over 1,500lbs (680kg)," according to the company's August 12 announcement about theupgrade.

The original version of the UAV completed several flight testing and demonstration milestones under U.S. Army and Marine Corps contracts, prior to Piasecki's acquisition of the program in April.

Piasecki plans to manufacture the KARGO II at its Heliplexfacility in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and expects to add new program partners and suppliers over the next year. The company expects the production version of the KARGO II to become available by 2027.

John Piasecki, CEO of Piasecki Aircraft Corporation, is theguest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast to discuss the future of the KARGO UAV program.

In 2024, Microchip launched PIC64, a new portfolio of microprocessors that the Chandler, Arizona-based company claims could enable a generational leap in embedded processing performance for aerospace and defense applications.

The new MPU technology is supported by  a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC-V) architecture with an embedded Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) Ethernet switch.

Check out the article featured in the September 2024 issue of Aerospace & Defense Technology to learn more about what the new processor could provide for spaceflight computing applications.

Bill Dillard, Senior Manager of Aerospace and Defense at Microchip, is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast to explain how the PIC64could also advance embedded processing performance for a wide variety of aerospace and defense applications.

A dual-use quantum accelerated simulation startup recentlyestablished a strategic collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to advance its mission-critical modeling and simulation capabilities with quantum computing.

BQP (BosonQ Psi), the Syracuse, New York-based startup, has also announced a new "oversubscribed $4.9 million seed round to expand its unified digital twin platform, BQPhy®, for mission-critical industries, including aerospace, defense (A&D), and semiconductors," according to a July announcement aboutthe new funding round.

The startup's BQPhy simulation platform is powered byquantum algorithms that are capable of unlocking significant gains in high performance computing when compared to platforms that use legacy algorithms, according to BQP.

“Our quantum-inspired solvers are setting a new benchmarkin simulation technology, bridging today’s computational limits and the quantum-ready future,” said Abhishek Chopra, BQP’s Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientific Officer. “The traction we're experiencing from AFRL/RQ and industry-leading design partners validates the immediate impact and substantialROI our platform delivers today. We're also making significant R&D progress in quantum-native solvers for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Machine Learning (ML), paving the way for future simulation workload for the next generation of data centers where HPC and quantum computers operate side by side.”

Chopra is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast to explain how their simulation technology leverages quantum algorithms for simulation and modeling.

EnCharge AI, a California-based startup, recently launchedthe EnCharge EN100 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, developed with a scalable analog in-memory computing architecture.

The launch of EN100 came a year after EnCharge AI signed apartnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the new chip.

“EN100 represents a fundamental shift in AI computingarchitecture, rooted in hardware and software innovations that have been de-risked through fundamental research spanning multiple generations of silicon development," said Naveen Verma, CEO at EnCharge AI. "These innovations are now being made available as products for the industry to use, as scalable, programmable AI inference solutions that break through the energy efficiency limits of today’s digital solutions. This means advanced, secure, and personalized AI can run locally, without relying on cloud infrastructure. We hope this will radically expand what you can do with AI.”

Verma is the guest on this first episode of Season 10 the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast. He explains how the EN100 delivers up to 200+ TOPS of total processing power for edge computing applications, and why it represents a major breakthrough for on-device AI.

Kymeta achieved a major breakthrough for the satellite communications industry recently by connecting four concurrent beams in Ku- and Ka-band frequencies with a single antenna aperture, during a demonstration in April.

Enabled by the company's unique metamaterials antenna surface, the technology was demonstrated and validated at Kymeta's headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Until this point, according to Kymeta, interoperability in the Ku and Ka bands has been possible only with Electronic Steered Antennas (ESA) using multiple physically separate antennas, which proves problematic due to the size and power usage required to operate.

Kymeta Chief Scientist Ryan Stevenson is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast to explain how they were achieved this groundbreaking demonstration of satellite communications.