FAA awards $12 million for 19 drone research projects

The FAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Broad Agency Announcement Program is designed to pair companies with FAA-designated UAS Test Sites to evaluate technologies needed for broader drone operations. This round of funding directs $12 million across 19 projects that address specific technical challenges: detect-and-avoid systems, long-range communications, traffic management and aircraft identification. Among the recipients, General Atomics will work on ground systems for aircraft avoidance, Censys Technologies will test satellite communications for long-range operations, and ANRA Technologies received awards for four projects including air taxi operations and vertiports.

The research will use the FAA's network of nine designated UAS Test Sites, located in Alaska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana. These sites provide locations and expertise for testing under real-world conditions. The FAA said the awards also support the Trump administration's Unleashing American Drone Dominance Executive Order, issued in June 2025, which calls for greater use of the test sites to develop, test and scale U.S. drone technologies.

For the drone industry, this funding offers another path for companies to test technologies alongside FAA partners, and the resulting data could help the agency understand operational challenges and inform future approaches to integrating drones into the National Airspace System. The outcome hinges on whether the test site network can accommodate the expanded research activity and whether the data generated translates into regulatory progress for more complex operations such as flights beyond visual line of sight.