First Small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) Equipped With The Hadron 640R Sensor

Red Cat Holdings subsidiary Teal Drones has signed a $1.8-million contract with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) by which the Salt Lake City, Utah drone-maker will provide Teal 2 Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Over the contract’s lifetime, Teal will deliver 106 of its Teal 2 drones, plus spare parts and training germane to such, to the hamstrung agency. The robust, quad-copter drones will afford the U.S. Border Patrol supplemental airborne reconnaissance, surveillance, and tracking capabilities, thereby enhancing—albeit to no avail—the situational awareness of the agency’s field commanders and agents.

The single-source contract falls under a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) entered into by CBP and five drone OEMs. The agreement, announced in December 2021, spans a five-year period of validity and has a total estimated value of $90-million.  

In October 2022, CBP submitted an initial order for 54 Teal drones worth just over $1-million.

Red Cat CEO Jeff Thompson stated: “We are honored to provide this important U.S. agency with drones that help enable their mission. The Border Patrol pilots are some of the best and their feedback has been instrumental in Teal 2 enhancements. This brings our current backlog to over $7.5-million as the Teal 2 revenue continues to accelerate. Red Cat has invested in a manufacturing facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we’re confident in our ability to meet order delivery deadlines for military, government and commercial customers.”

The Teal 2 is the world’s first small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) equipped with the Hadron 640R sensor, a superb bit of kit developed by Portland, Oregon-based Teledyne FLIR—a highly-regarded designer, manufacturer, and distributor of Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) technologies and products

Rugged, portable, and deployable in the harshest environments, the Teal 2’s multi-vehicle command and control capability enables 360-degree viewing of a single target or ISR observation of multiple targets. What’s more, by virtue of its Teledyne FLIR giblets, the Teal 2 offers operators the highest resolution thermal imaging available in a compact (Group 1) UAS.

The Teal 2 features, also,  Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) technology capable of delivering time-critical information and enabling operators to make faster, smarter decisions in the field. The system offers multi-vehicle control and artificial-intelligence capabilities.

In addition to Teledyne FLIR, Red Cat developed the Teal 2 in partnership with Athena AI, Reveal Technology, and Tomahawk Robotics.

Previously limited to early-adopters—such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection—the Teal 2 was declared universally available to military, government, and commercial entities at 2023’s Army Aviation Association of America’s (AAAA) Mission Solutions Summit in Nashville, Tennessee.

Teal Drones is a member of the Blue UAS list of manufacturers—a small group of technology concerns authorized to provision the U.S. military with esoteric implements of modern warfare. Teal Drones is one of only three drone-makers invited to participate in the Short Range Reconnaissance Tranche 2 (SRR T2)—a Pentagon initiative that set out to equip U.S. Army platoons with a sUAS capable of improving American warfighters’ situational awareness by carrying out Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

FMI: www.redcatholdings.com