Red Cat Holdings subsidiary Teal Drones has secured an additional $1.2 million to continue developing a new small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) prototype for the US Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program.
Teal was first awarded a prototype contract for the SRR Tranche 2 program in March 2022, and the Army is now obligating a total of $2.7 million for Teal’s participation.
Teal is one of only three vendors competing in Tranche 2, which the Army has advised will now be the final tranche of the SRR program.
After vendors complete a series of testing and demonstration milestones, the winning vendor(s) will be selected to produce a rucksack-portable sUAS designed to provide Army platoons of 20 to 50 soldiers with a rapidly deployable surveillance and reconnaissance capability to gain situational awareness beyond the next terrain feature.
The newly obligated funding brings additional objective requirements, originally assigned to Tranche 3, for the sUAS prototypes to meet.
“A future SRR production contract is a major opportunity for any company selected, and Teal is excited to give the warfighter the best we have,” said George Matus, Teal Founder and CEO. “I’m confident the SRR prototype we’re developing will meet and exceed the Army’s requirements.”
“Uncrewed systems are a disruptive technology that provide soldiers an unfair advantage on the battlefield,” said Maj. Josh McMillion, US Army SRR APM. “SRR is the Army’s solution to provide this capability now to ensure our soldiers have the technological edge over the enemy in any operational environment and never have a fair fight.”
Teal’s prototype will feature some of the same technology found in its new military-grade sUAS, the Teal 2. Teal 2 is designed for nighttime operations, offering the latest intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance technology, and delivering time-critical information to enable operators to make faster, smarter decisions.
Teal’s technology partners for its SRR effort include Teledyne FLIR, Doodle Labs and Immervision.
