Parrot Selected by the US DIU as a major drone supplier

Air September 2, 2020

European drone group, Parrot, has announced its selection in the Blue sUAS programme by the US Army and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).

The DIU is a US Department of Defense organisation that accelerates commercial technology for national defence.

The Blue sUAS programme is a spin-off of the Short-Range Reconnaissance (SRR) programme launched by the Army and DIU in April 2019. The Blue sUAS drone development effort was organised in response to increased government-wide demand for secure and ultraportable drones that could be used for a variety of military and federal applications.

Parrot is currently one of two finalists of the SRR project, with delivery of a production-ready SRR drone scheduled by the end of 2020. Parrot’s work for the SRR project confirmed to the DIU that the company is capable of meeting the outstanding and proven security, performance, scalability and ease-of-use requirements in its initial solutions designed for the US Army.

Following the initial phases of the SRR programme, the DIU launched the Blue sUAS (Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems) effort to address high demand for trusted, secure, ultraportable, rapidly deployable, inexpensive and US-manufactured drones for deployment in U.S. military, federal agencies and government operations.

Both the SRR and Blue sUAS programmes comply with Section 848 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which prohibits operating or procuring unmanned aircraft systems manufactured in China.

Parrot has been selected once more by the DIU as one of the five participants in the Blue sUAS programme. Parrot was invited to present its solutions on August 19, 2020. At this virtual event, Parrot revealed two new high-performance tactical reconnaissance drones: ANAFI USA MIL for military forces, and ANAFI USA GOV for government and federal agencies.