Shield AI’s novel vertical take-off and landing V-BAT drone is growing in stature, with steadily increasing orders, a new variant, and most notably with a recent series of successful missions flown over Ukraine. While in that war zone the drones were able to deliver reliable effects despite operating in the most dense electronic warfare combat environment in the world.

V-BATs were initially tested in Ukraine in June 2024 to evaluate how they performed in the face of just this kind of enemy interference. According to a Ukrainian report the V-BATs were able to operate unhindered, even when they flew very close to Ukrainian jamming systems. A follow-up battlefield experiment in Ukraine in August saw V-BATs locate Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries before relaying targeting data back to Ukrainian forces so that M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems,or HiMARS, could attack and destroy the SAM sites.

The Ukraine experiments clearly demonstrated how V-BAT is able to operate in a highly complex modern battlespace, with its embedded artificial intelligence working hand-in-hand with its suite of onboard sensors. As a package, the V-BAT offers a relatively low-cost unmanned aerial system (UAS) capability with significant endurance that can take off and land nearly anywhere and can operate in cooperative swarms to tackle complex missions. These include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and targeting tasks in higher-threat environments.

Armor Harris is Shield AI’s vice president of aircraft engineering, where he leads the development of V-BAT. Harris came to Shield AI from SpaceX, where he was the responsible engineer for developing the propulsive landing capability on Falcon 9 and was also head engineer for the Starlink satellite constellation.

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