IDEX 2025: Teal Drones set to sign for US Army production

Teal Drones expects to have a low-rate initial production (LRIP) contract for supply of its small quadcopter Black Widow uncrewed aerial system (UAS) to the US Army very soon.

Red Cat, Teal Drones’ parent company, was last year chosen as the winner of the coveted US Army’s SRRT2 programme. The programme aims to provide frontline warfighters with a small UAS for intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance operations.

Stan Nowak, VP for marketing at Red Cat, speaking to Shephard at IDEX 2025, confirming that the company was “in the middle of working out details of the LRIP contract”.

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“We have envisioned Black Widow as part of a system of platforms which will include the redeveloped Edge Blue 130 tri-copter and Fang precision strike drone, the latter which we are in the process of developing,” Nowak said.

"We are on the right timeline and are meeting previous expectations in terms of the process and delivery schedule which includes LRIP and full-rate production.

One scenario envisioned by the company is operating all three types from buoys at sea to provide a littoral barrier, an effort being conducted in co-ordination with Ocean Power Technologies.

Under the ‘family of UAS’ concept, faster-to-target capability will be provided by the fixed-wing Edge 130 Blue which is being further developed and renamed Trichon. This platform is manufactured by RedCat subsidiary FlightWave and has transitioning leading rotors which provide hover and forward motion.

The Fang UAS is in the early stages of development but would provide the attack capability while Black Widow will provide the loitering observation capability.

RedCat is also working with Sentien Robotics to develop a hive system which would allow for the operation of between 12 and 80 uncrewed aerial vehicles at a time.

The Black Widow SRRT2 selection was a major win for the company and it is already looking to improve the platform’s capability.

For this requirement it will carry a FLIR Teledyne Systems Hadron 640R+ EO sensor which is integrated with Prism artificial intelligence software stack.

This story was amended on 19 February to clarify contract and production timelines.

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Related Programmes in Defence Insight

Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) (Tranche 2) / Rucksack Portable UAS (RPUAS) [USA]

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

Trichon

Fang

Black Widow