PDW builds multi-mission drones and supporting mission-planning and simulation software for defence and public safety, with U.S. manufacturing in Huntsville, Alabama.
PDW (Performance Drone Works) is a defence technology company that builds multi-mission aerial robotic systems for defence and public safety. It places its platforms in the gap between low-capability consumer drones and expensive high-end military systems. The company is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, and manufactures in the United States at Drone Factory 01, a 90,000-square-foot facility.
Its product line spans hardware and software. The C100 is a multi-mission quadcopter platform for defence and public safety applications, and the AM-FPV (Attritable Multi-Copter FPV) is an attritable first-person-view platform. Alongside these sit PDW CORE, a mission planning software solution, and PDW SIM, simulator technology. Engineering work covers unmanned aerial systems, autonomous systems, aerial robotics, drone manufacturing, mission planning and simulation.
The team is built by combat veterans and drone engineers. Staff report more than 890 combined combat deployments and over 50,000 combined flight hours; 34% of leadership come from military backgrounds. Development proceeds through rapid iteration on field feedback combined with rigorous testing. PDW has partnered with Nvidia on autonomous systems competitions.
The company has a $820M conditional loan commitment from the Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital, intended to expand domestic drone manufacturing capacity.
