Machina Labs wins Pentagon drone contract on AI manufacturing - Bloomberg
Investing.com ·
Machina Labs wins Pentagon drone contract on AI manufacturing - Bloomberg
Investing.com - The Pentagon awarded Machina Labs a $9 million contract for an 18-month trial to build metal airframes for the US military’s Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, drones, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The Los Angeles-based robotics startup will use artificial intelligence-powered robotic arms to mass-produce the attack drones in quickly assembled modular factories.
The LUCAS drones were reverse-engineered from Iran’s Shahed platform, which Russia has used against Ukraine for years. Tehran also deployed the attack drones against the US and Gulf nations throughout the current Middle East conflict, hitting US bases and regional energy infrastructure, menacing the Strait of Hormuz and commercial vessels, and overwhelming allied air defenses.
Machina, which has received investment from Lockheed Martin Corp.’s venture capital arm, aims to demonstrate that AI-driven manufacturing can quickly build larger drones closer to where they are needed with factories that could be established in roughly a month, CEO Ed Mehr said in an interview with Bloomberg. The initial contract is intended to prove the technology rather than purchase large numbers of drones, and future orders are not guaranteed, Mehr said.
Read the full story at Investing.com · All coverage of this story