Autonomous Warfare Market Snapshot: July 2026
Our parent company, GovExec, recently hosted Autonomous Warfare: The New Rules of Combat Acquisition, a webinar exploring how autonomy is reshaping defense acquisition and operations.
To build on that conversation, we took a look at notable opportunities, agencies, programs, vendors, and awards across the autonomous warfare ecosystem. Here’s what we found.
Get the snapshot.
Download a concise, shareable overview of the opportunities, programs, vendors, and awards shaping the autonomous warfare market.
Download PDFKey opportunities & players
Opportunities
Emerging contracting activity
Agencies
Organizations driving investment
Programs
Initiatives to watch
Vendors
Companies active in the market
Key awards
Production-Ready UAV Test Assets
W58RGZ24C0021
$3.26B ceiling; $367.4M obligated.
Supports the development and delivery of production-ready test assets for unmanned aerial vehicle programs.
DARPA LONGSHOT Autonomous Air-Launched Vehicle
LONGSHOT Phase III
$103.4M ceiling; $101.9M obligated.
Advances DARPA's LONGSHOT program, developing an unmanned air-launched vehicle designed to deploy existing air-to-air weapons.
Swarming Autonomy for Heterogeneous Unmanned Systems
Office of Naval Research
$84.7M ceiling.
Expands swarming autonomy capabilities across multiple types of unmanned systems for the Office of Naval Research.
MQ-9 Autonomy and Sensor Modernization
MQ-9 Smart Sensor Payloads
Supports MQ-9 sensor and autonomy upgrades, helping bridge today's remotely piloted aircraft capabilities with next-generation autonomous systems.
Explore more with GovTribe
Dive deeper into this market and others with GovTribe, a platform that combines live, trusted govcon intelligence with AI-powered research and capture tools to help contractors find the right opportunities, understand their market, and make informed pursuit decisions faster.
Log In Start Free Trial