AUSA 2026: Red Cat Aerial shows off new capabilities, products

Red Cat Black Widow quadcopter on Red Cat company Quaze's Fox tactical, portable, wireless charging node for short-range reconnaissance and FPV drones (Janes/Jeremiah Cushman)

Red Cat Holdings announced on 12 October that it had combined its Teal Drones and FlightWave Aerospace businesses into a new entity, Red Cat Aerial. “Uniting both businesses gives customers a single point of engagement for Red Cat's aerial systems and gives the division a shared engineering foundation to develop new platforms faster as mission requirements change,” the statement said.

Red Cat Aerial displayed its portfolio of drones at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, DC, from 12-14 October. These include quadcopter, first-person view (FPV) and fixed-wing options, Mitch McDonald, the CEO for Red Cat Aerial, told Janes at the conference on 12 October.

“We've got Apium autonomy layered on top for FPVs and then we've got a new Quaze charging mat called Fox,” he said, adding that Quaze provides field charging solutions to extend the range of battery-powered Group 1 drones.

“The ability to extend the range of your mission is going to be reliant on your ability to provide power in the field,” McDonald explained. Strategically placing charging mats [and] being able to charge on boats or other platforms enables operators to increase mission range and swap assets autonomously, he said.

Fang and Black Widow

Red Cat continues to develop its Black Widow and Fang products, including improved modular payloads that can be retrofitted to existing air vehicles, McDonald said.