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Teledyne FLIR Defense and STORM have formed a partnership, announced at Eurosatory 2026 in Paris, to bring the Black Recon vehicle reconnaissance system to the Rapid Adapt and Deploy System (RADS).
As a RADS Application Partner, Teledyne FLIR Defense gains a standardised route to field its mobile reconnaissance system across a wider variety of vehicle types, while joining STORM’s growing ecosystem of certified technology partners. The Black Recon system allows crews to autonomously launch, operate, and recover up to three small reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from fixed sites or from inside a vehicle cabin. Equipped with both electro-optical and thermal cameras, these UAVs provide persistent situational awareness ahead of advancing forces and beyond the line of sight, all controlled safely from within the vehicle.
The integration of RADS introduces an open, modular architecture that standardises how technology integrates onto vehicles. This framework allows the reconnaissance system to be mounted, upgraded, or transferred between various platforms in minutes without requiring bespoke engineering. The system can adapt to standard pickups, the RADS Trailer, and lighter platforms including all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), snowmobiles, and boats. Additionally, the system can function completely detached from a vehicle as a standalone, personal reconnaissance system deployed by a single operator in minutes.
The agreement also opens a commercial channel for Teledyne FLIR Defense, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE: TDY), onto RADS-equipped fleets and STORM’s growing distributor network. As development progresses, the partners intend to explore additional sensing and unmanned systems from the Teledyne FLIR portfolio that are suited for RADS integration.
“Our customers operate in environments where mission requirements change quickly, and they need to add and update capability without taking vehicles out of service,” said Harald Sørensen, Vice President of Norway Operations at Teledyne FLIR Defense. “RADS gives us a standardised way to put Black Recon onto the platforms our customers already field and to do it at scale. We see RADS as a natural foundation for bringing more of our drone portfolio to vehicle fleets over time.”
“It is a real vote of confidence to have a company of Teledyne FLIR Defense’s standing build on RADS,” said Andreas Rist, Founder, STORM. “Black Recon is genuinely exciting technology and having a global leader in sensing and unmanned systems choose our platform means a great deal to us. We are proud to have them as a partner.”
“With RADS you have a whole fleet where every vehicle can run any task and be repurposed as needs change, and a capability like Black Recon can be added, moved between vehicles, or deployed on its own in minutes. That’s exactly what this partnership is built to deliver,” Rist added.
