Palladyne AI Corp. and Red Cat Holdings, Inc. have successfully completed an autonomous, cross-platform collaborative flight involving three diverse heterogeneous drones.
During this most recent test, which leveraged Red Cat’s Teal 2 and Black Widow drones and the Palladyne™ Pilot AI software, each platform operated using onboard edge computing and constrained communication protocols—without reliance on centralized infrastructure to communicate.
The system enabled real-time, distributed detection and tracking of multiple dynamic and static ground objects—including humans and vehicles—in different regions of interest, providing a single operator with comprehensive situational awareness.
The two companies previously completed a successful two-drone flight operation in January 2025, with Palladyne AI additionally conducting a single-drone testing scenario in December 2024 to autonomously identify, prioritize, and track terrestrial targets.
Matt Vogt, Chief Revenue Officer at Palladyne AI, commented, “This new testing milestone represents significant progress in our joint mission with Red Cat to enable multi-drone interoperability and autonomous collaboration for the defense sector. We are proud to have successfully completed this three-drone flight and believe our joint, cross-platform, autonomous solution will be a game changer for U.S. military personnel and drone operators. With this major step forward, we are excited about what Palladyne Pilot will bring to our government and defense customers as well as to our target non-defense civil customer base.”
Geoff Hitchcock, Chief Revenue Officer of Red Cat, added, “Successfully expanding from single to three-drone operations reflects not only the reliability of our drones and Palladyne’s AI software, but also the capability of onboard systems to independently handle complex missions. For warfighters, this provides greater situational awareness while requiring fewer operators in the field to manage multiple assets. This latest test is a meaningful step toward making multiple, collaborative autonomous systems more practical and effective in real-world defense scenarios.”
