Tens of thousands of Perennial Autonomy's Bumblebee V1 UAVs in Ukraine

A US soldier preparing to fly a Bumblebee V1 UAV as part of a training exercise in the Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, on 20 March 2026. (Spc. Thomas Dixon of 7th Army Training Command)

Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) were sent tens of thousands of US company Perennial Autonomy's Bumblebee V1 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over an undisclosed period, a source close to the company confirmed to Janes on 22 April 2026.

The Bumblebee includes an artifical intelligence (AI)-component used for identifying targets “which the human operator then chooses from”, according to the source. The Bumblebee is “intentionally built to not be fully autonomous” as Perennial Autonomy does not support fully autonomous target selection or engagement, they added.

The Bumblebee V1 is a first-person view (FPV) quadcopter UAV that was being operationally assessed by the US Army for use as a reconnaissance asset and a counter-UAV (C-UAV) platform, according to a 14 April US State Department press release. The platform enables US military personnel to track and “follow [hostile] drones back to their launch point to identify the operator or destroy them [the hostile UAV] in the air with minimal risk”, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Adam Scher, Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) 401, is quoted as saying in the release.

JIATF 401 was set to begin receiving deliveries of the Bumblebee V2 UAVs in March after an agreement was awarded to Perennial Autonomy on 30 January, according to a US Army announcement on 6 February. Perennial Autonomy was formerly called Project Eagle, according to a US Army 26 March press release. Project Eagle was founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a NATO official confirmed to Janes in November 2025.