US Marines to Acquire Thousands of Reconfigurable FPV Drones in 2026
The US Marine Corps plans to purchase up to 10,000 reconfigurable, cost-effective, small drones within a year, with a focus on first-person view (FPV) capabilities.
Initial batches are expected by April, with producers able to rapidly scale up their manufacture, delivering up to 5,000 air vehicles within six months and as many as 10,000 units within 12 months.
Each system is expected to comprise an air vehicle, ground control station or controller, communications equipment, goggles, batteries, and a charging station, with the air vehicle priced below $4,000.
Field Reconfiguration
The system should have a modular design that enables adaptation to evolving battlefield conditions and allows rapid reconfiguration without vendor involvement to support multiple tasks.
Its primary mission will be reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition, with a secondary role in communications relay and an expanded mission set that includes lethal payload delivery and electronic support.
Additional required features include first-person view capability integrated with the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), enabling users to control the drone, view live video feeds, and distribute this data across the network for enhanced situational awareness.
Marine’s Drone Force in Making
The initiative aligns with the service’s launch of a new training framework designed to rapidly expand the number of warfighters qualified to operate small unmanned aerial systems.
Under this framework, the Marine Corps will establish six pilot courses and eight certifications covering roles such as basic drone operators, attack drone operators, payload specialists, and instructors.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon recently launched the $1-billion Drone Dominance program, which seeks to significantly expand domestic drone manufacturing and acquire roughly 300,000 systems over the next two years.
The program is designed to reform the Pentagon’s traditionally slow acquisition process by creating predictable, high-volume demand to drive large-scale industrial production.
