An Auburn Hills company that grew out of drone entertainment technology has landed a minimum $25 million military order to build 4,000 one-way attack drones — putting Michigan at the center of the Pentagon’s push for mass-produced drone warfare.
Swarm Defense Technologies said the prototype delivery order covers 4,000 of its Kiwi attack drones under the U.S. military’s Drone Dominance Program. The minimum $25 million value includes munitions.
The aircraft will be manufactured at the company’s 40,000-square-foot facility in Auburn Hills.
The order follows military testing at Fort Carson, Colorado, where operators evaluated competing aircraft in unscripted mission scenarios. Swarm Defense was among the companies that advanced through the competition.
For Michigan, the contract could represent something larger than one defense order.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated how relatively inexpensive unmanned aircraft can threaten tanks, artillery, air-defense systems and other military equipment costing vastly more than the drones attacking them.
The Pentagon is now trying to develop the ability to manufacture drones in much larger numbers.
Michigan already possesses many of the ingredients needed to participate: automotive-scale manufacturing, robotics and automation companies, electrical and software engineers, precision manufacturing and a large defense industry.
And Michigan is becoming increasingly important as a place to test the technology.
From Drone Light Shows To Attack Drones
Swarm Defense has an unusual history.
The company grew out of Firefly Drone Shows, which developed technology for operating large numbers of illuminated drones simultaneously for entertainment.
Firefly has built more than 20,000 swarming drones since 2017, according to Swarm Defense. The companies share engineering and manufacturing resources in Auburn Hills.
Many of the technical challenges involved in operating hundreds of entertainment drones — coordinating flight paths, preventing collisions and controlling many aircraft simultaneously — also apply to military drone swarms.
Swarm Defense adapted that experience for military applications.
The company says its aircraft design, electronics, flight controllers, battery-management systems, embedded software and swarm-coordination technology are developed in-house.
Its Kiwi quadcopter can be configured for intelligence and surveillance, communications relay and precision delivery.
The new military order covers its one-way attack configuration.
One Operator, Multiple Attack Drones
The technology controlling the aircraft may be as important as the Kiwi itself.
Swarm Defense’s Strike Deck software allows one operator to manage multiple aircraft simultaneously.
The software automates navigation and coordinates flight paths to prevent drones from interfering with one another as they move toward their destinations.
The company says Strike Deck can manage dozens of aircraft.
Importantly, Swarm Defense says target selection and authorization to engage remain with human operators.
Swarm Defense President Adam Wright, a former Navy SEAL, said the technology is intended to reduce the number of personnel required to operate large numbers of drones.
The company says an operator can learn to fly five Kiwi drones simultaneously after only a few hours of training.
That addresses one of the fundamental problems with deploying drones at enormous scale.
If every drone requires a separate pilot, deploying hundreds of aircraft can require hundreds of trained operators.
Swarming software attempts to change that equation.
Michigan Is Already Testing Drone Swarms
Michigan has another potential advantage: Camp Grayling.
During Northern Strike in August, Swarm Defense demonstrated 100 Swarm Threat Emulator drones operating in coordination at Camp Grayling, according to the Michigan National Guard.
The demonstration was part of an Industry Day event during Northern Strike 26-2, an exercise involving approximately 9,000 participants.
Swarm Defense’s technology has also been used in counter-drone training involving the Army, Air Force and Navy. The company identifies Camp Grayling as a location for Air Force base-defense threat-replication exercises.
Camp Grayling offers 148,000 acres of training land along with restricted airspace and facilities for unmanned aircraft operations, according to the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
That creates an intriguing economic-development possibility.
Michigan could potentially combine drone testing in Northern Michigan with engineering and manufacturing in Southeast Michigan.
Made In Auburn Hills
Swarm Defense says its hardware, software and electronics are designed and manufactured in-house in Auburn Hills.
The company also says it has maintained a domestic supply chain since 2021 with no components from designated foreign countries.
That matters because China dominates much of the global commercial-drone industry and supplies many electronic components used throughout the sector.
Developing a domestic drone manufacturing base has therefore become both an industrial and national-security priority.
Michigan’s existing manufacturing infrastructure could provide an advantage.
Metro Detroit already contains companies capable of producing electronics, motors, batteries, sensors, communications equipment, precision components and sophisticated production machinery.
But Swarm Defense has not disclosed how much of the Kiwi’s component supply chain comes specifically from Michigan companies.
The Next Competition Is Coming Back To Michigan
Camp Grayling’s role isn’t finished.
The Pentagon has invited Swarm Defense and other companies to another Drone Dominance competition focused on reusable bomber drones.
The qualifying competition is scheduled to take place at Camp Grayling.
That means Michigan could increasingly occupy both sides of the military drone business: testing the aircraft in Northern Michigan and manufacturing some of them in Southeast Michigan.
It also gives Michigan an opportunity to demonstrate that the state’s defense industry can extend beyond the tanks and armored vehicles traditionally associated with Southeast Michigan into autonomous aircraft, software and mass-produced unmanned systems.
Several Questions Remain
The size of the order raises important questions about its economic impact in Michigan.
MITechNews contacted Swarm Defense and submitted questions asking how quickly the 4,000 drones must be delivered, how many people currently work at its Auburn Hills facility, how many additional workers it expects to hire because of the order, and how much of the Kiwi’s supply chain comes from Michigan companies.
Swarm Defense had not responded to MITechNews’ questions before publication.
Those answers would help determine how significant the contract will be for Michigan’s economy and whether the order could generate additional manufacturing jobs and supplier business beyond Swarm Defense’s Auburn Hills operation.
The initial award also is a prototype delivery order rather than evidence of a permanent production program. Future military purchases will depend on testing, performance and subsequent Pentagon procurement decisions.
But an order for 4,000 aircraft represents a significant test of whether Swarm Defense can move from development and demonstrations into high-volume military production.
Could Michigan Become A Drone Manufacturing Center?
Michigan has spent decades trying to diversify an economy heavily dependent on automobiles.
Military drones present an unusual opportunity because they don’t require Michigan to abandon its manufacturing heritage.
They could build on it.
The state already has engineering talent, robotics expertise, precision manufacturing, military vehicle production, software development and thousands of suppliers accustomed to building complex products.
Northern Michigan also offers something most states cannot easily duplicate: enormous military training areas and controlled airspace where new unmanned systems can be tested.
Swarm Defense’s 4,000-drone order now provides an early test of whether those assets can be connected into a larger Michigan drone industry.
If the Auburn Hills company demonstrates that thousands of American-made drones can be manufactured quickly and economically, Michigan could find itself building a very different kind of vehicle for the next generation of warfare — one that flies.
