The U.S. military buys drones from a mix of giant defense contractors and smaller, newer tech companies. The biggest name is General Atomics, which builds the iconic MQ-9 Reaper, but the full list spans at least nine major manufacturers producing everything from backpack-sized loitering munitions to high-altitude surveillance platforms that fly above 60,000 feet. The Pentagon is planning to spend $9.4 billion on aerial combat drones alone in fiscal year 2026, part of a larger $13.4 billion investment in autonomous systems.
General Atomics: The Dominant Drone Maker
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, based in San Diego, is the company most associated with American military drones. It built the original MQ-1 Predator that became famous during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it now produces the larger, more capable MQ-9 Reaper. The Reaper has a 66-foot wingspan, carries up to 3,750 pounds of payload, and can stay airborne with a range of over 1,150 miles. It’s powered by a 900-horsepower turboprop engine and operated remotely by a two-person crew: a pilot and a sensor operator.
The Reaper’s primary job is intelligence collection, but it also carries a serious weapons loadout. It can be armed with up to eight laser-guided Hellfire missiles alongside various precision bombs. A full system, which includes four aircraft, sensors, a ground control station, and a satellite link, costs about $56.5 million. The Air Force has operated Reapers since 2007, and General Atomics continues to develop new platforms, including a jet-powered drone for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Its YFQ-42A prototype recently flew with autonomous mission software.
Northrop Grumman: High-Altitude Surveillance
Northrop Grumman fills a different role in the drone fleet. Its RQ-4 Global Hawk is a massive, unarmed surveillance aircraft designed to fly at 60,000 feet for more than 34 hours at a time. With a wingspan of nearly 131 feet (wider than a Boeing 737), it provides persistent, near-real-time intelligence using cameras, infrared sensors, radar, and signals intelligence equipment. It can cover a range of 12,300 nautical miles on a single mission.
The Global Hawk comes in several configurations. Block 30 variants carry multiple sensor types simultaneously, while Block 40 versions feature an advanced electronically scanned radar for tracking moving targets. Northrop Grumman also builds the MQ-4C Triton, a maritime variant the Navy uses for ocean surveillance. These are the platforms the military relies on when it needs to watch a huge area for extended periods without putting a pilot at risk.
Boeing: Building the Navy’s First Carrier Drone
Boeing Defense is developing the MQ-25 Stingray, which would be the Navy’s first carrier-based drone and the entire Defense Department’s first unmanned aerial tanker. Rather than carrying weapons, the Stingray’s job is mid-air refueling. It would extend the range of crewed fighter jets in a carrier air wing and free up the fighter aircraft that currently have to be modified to serve as tankers for other planes.
The Navy selected Boeing in 2018 to build the Stingray. A Boeing-owned demonstrator made its first flight in 2019 and successfully refueled another aircraft mid-flight in 2021. Production is planned to begin in fiscal year 2026. Boeing also produces other unmanned systems across its defense division, but the MQ-25 represents its most significant current drone program.
Lockheed Martin: Stealth and Classified Programs
Lockheed Martin’s drone work tends to happen behind closed doors. Its Skunk Works advanced development division built the RQ-170 Sentinel, a low-observable (stealth) reconnaissance drone operated by Air Combat Command out of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and the Tonopah Test Range. The RQ-170 provides intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to locate targets for combatant commanders. One of these aircraft famously crashed in Iran in 2011, confirming its existence to the public.
Beyond the Sentinel, Lockheed Martin is widely believed to have other classified drone programs in development. The company also competes for contracts across the broader autonomous systems space, leveraging its stealth expertise in ways that rarely make it into public budget documents.
AeroVironment: Small Drones and Loitering Munitions
Not every military drone is a multi-million-dollar aircraft. AeroVironment specializes in small, portable systems that individual soldiers can carry and launch by hand. Its Raven and Puma drones weigh just a few pounds and give small units their own overhead surveillance capability without calling in support from larger platforms.
AeroVironment’s fastest-growing product line is the Switchblade family of loitering munitions, sometimes called “kamikaze drones.” These are small, tube-launched systems that fly to a target area, loiter until the operator identifies a target, then dive into it and detonate. The Switchblade 300 is backpack-sized and designed for a single operator, while the Switchblade 600 is a larger, longer-range system built for multi-domain operations. In a recent $186 million Army delivery order, AeroVironment received its first procurement contract for next-generation versions of both. The new Switchblade 300 Block 20 features a modular payload and an explosively formed penetrator warhead that can defeat armored targets, a significant upgrade from earlier versions.
Anduril and the New Wave of Defense Startups
Anduril Industries represents a newer breed of defense company. Founded in 2017, it has quickly won major military contracts by emphasizing software, autonomy, and rapid production. Anduril builds the Altius-600 loitering munition and the Ghost-X, a versatile reconnaissance drone. The company’s real differentiator is Lattice, its AI-powered command and control software that can coordinate multiple autonomous systems simultaneously.
In February 2025, Anduril’s YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft prototype demonstrated something notable: it flew with two different AI “pilots” during a single flight, switching between Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software and Anduril’s own Lattice system without landing. This kind of modular, software-driven approach is central to the Air Force’s vision for autonomous “loyal wingman” drones that fly alongside crewed fighters. The Air Force is requesting $789.4 million for research and development of these systems and plans a production decision for the CCA program in 2026.
Other Key Manufacturers
Several other companies hold significant drone contracts. Kratos Defense builds low-cost, jet-powered target drones and tactical systems designed to be affordable enough to lose in combat, a concept the military calls “attritable.” Textron Systems produces the Shadow and Aerosonde drones used for tactical surveillance. Raytheon Technologies, while better known for missiles and sensors, contributes drone subsystems and serves as a subcontractor on platforms like the Global Hawk.
Performance Drone Works is a smaller company that secured a $20.9 million Army contract in 2025 for its C-100 drone, a medium-range reconnaissance system. Shield AI, though not a drone manufacturer in the traditional sense, develops the Hivemind autonomous piloting software that can be installed across multiple aircraft types.
The Replicator Initiative and Mass Production
The Pentagon launched the Replicator initiative to rapidly field large numbers of relatively inexpensive autonomous systems. The idea is to counter adversaries who can produce cheap drones in massive quantities by building an American supply chain for similar systems. Confirmed selections for Replicator include AeroVironment’s Switchblade 600, Anduril’s Altius-600 and Ghost-X, and Performance Drone Works’ C-100. The initiative also includes uncrewed surface vehicles, undersea vehicles like Anduril’s Dive-LD, and counter-drone systems such as Fortem Technologies’ DroneHunter F700.
Seven additional companies were selected to provide the software backbone for Replicator’s autonomy and command-and-control systems. The initiative signals a broader shift in how the military thinks about drones: not just as expensive, exquisite platforms like the Reaper or Global Hawk, but as affordable, networked systems that can be produced at scale and, if necessary, expended in combat.
How the Military Classifies Its Drones
The Department of Defense organizes drones into five groups based on weight, altitude, and speed. Group 1 covers the smallest systems weighing under 20 pounds, like the hand-launched Raven. Group 5 includes the largest platforms, like the Global Hawk, which weighs over 32,000 pounds at takeoff. In most contexts, “small UAS” refers to any drone under 55 pounds. This classification system determines everything from how a drone is regulated to which units can operate it, with smaller groups generally requiring less specialized training and infrastructure.