The U.S. National Drone Association (USNDA) has officially announced the launch of its DroneWERX White List Program, which happens to be a groundbreaking initiative geared towards eliminating bureaucratic barriers for innovation.
According to certain reports, this the program will do by directly connecting warfighter-identified challenges to American-made drone and counter-drone solutions from academia, startups, and industry.
To understand the significance of such a development, we must take into account how Department of Defense (DoD) programs, currently governing small drone acquisition, remain complex and restrictive in their nature, causing a systemic bottleneck. This very bottleneck is also making it difficult for warfighters across the country to access or experiment with new technologies at the speed of relevance.
Such a vicious cycle, like you can guess, is greatly stifling both operational adaptability and domestic innovation.
Against that, DroneWERX White List will ditch the traditional down-select process or approval threshold. Instead, it will be structured as a living, transparent repository capable of crowdsourcing feedback from operational end users, while simultaneously creating transparency for problem-solvers with potentially viable solutions.
Not just that, as the DoD works to loosen policy and delegate approvals, operational commanders will also have direct access to emerging solutions to integrate into their training and experimentation.
“Congress has handed the DoD two difficult simultaneous tasks; to prepare for a drone war with China by 2027, and to develop a strong U.S. drone industrial base” said Nathan Ecelbarger, USNDA President. “It should not require a General Officer or Senior Acquisitions Manager’s signature to allow warfighters to access and train with emerging NDAA compliant, American-made drone technologies while they await final ‘approvals’. The DroneWERX White List will give the operational community the technology toolbox they need and clear the runway for innovators—creating transparency and consistency across the board.”
Taking a deeper view of how DroneWERX White List will work, we begin from its promise to crowdsource problem sets. In essence, USNDA will engage directly with its trusted networks of warfighters, national defense leaders, and public safety professionals to surface real, unstructured problem sets that reflect current gaps in drone and counter-drone capabilities.
Just like its problem statement, the agency will also practice an open sourcing approach to finding solution. Here, U.S. startups, university labs, and industry partners will all come together to submit proposed solutions regardless of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) or existing vendor status.
USNDA’s latest brainchild is also expected to include comprehensive feasibility evaluation, which will be conducted by government end users. You see, operational end users from across the DoD and public safety sectors will be tasked with evaluating the relevance and viability of proposed solutions so to prioritize those with clear field utility.
Another detail worth a mention is rooted in the availability of grant support for prototyping. This translates to how early-stage solutions will receive USNDA-administered grants for classroom-based prototyping, aligning with the program’s mission to partner academic research with mission-driven outcomes.
Then, there is the prospect of field testing at USNDA’s drone crucibles. Promising solutions are basically fielded and stress-tested in realistic operational scenarios during USNDA’s Drone Crucible competitions and in other organized combat evaluation exercises where government teams evaluate technical performance and mission impact.
Hold on, we still have a couple of bits left to unpack, considering we haven’t touched upon the potential in regards to supporting startups and early prototypes. USNDA will help successful concepts clock follow-on investment, connect to NDAA-compliant component supply chains, and secure private or public funding to scale for mission demand.
Rounding up highlights would be the focus on navigating last mile of DoD acquisition. The new program will support teams through the minimum required steps to meet acquisition needs based on specific demands of the acquiring DoD component, avoiding over-engineered, one-size-fits-all procurement processes.
“The DroneWERX White List is an important step toward highlighting and accelerating the incredible work being done by American industry and academia to restore our national competitiveness. It brings visibility to the innovators who are helping to rebuild a resilient domestic supply chain and reduce our dependence on foreign—particularly Chinese—drone technology,” said Ylber Bajraktari, Senior Advisor, Special Competitive Studies Project.
