Overview
- Multi-day flight tests on the U.S. Army SRR Black Widow platform showed Palantir’s Visual Navigation software completing ISR missions without GPS using the drone’s existing sensors.
- Palantir engineers reported a mean positional error of about 7 meters over a 2.7-kilometer route with reliable performance at speeds up to 16 mph, altitudes down to 150 feet AGL, and in low-light conditions.
- The software was fully integrated with the Black Widow flight controller and required no additional hardware.
- Red Cat and Palantir characterize this as the first known commercial demonstration of visual navigation on a drone already in a U.S. Army program of record.
- Next steps include a formal Army demonstration and productization for fielded systems, and Red Cat shares rose roughly 10% in premarket trading following the announcement.