Military drone plant opens in Arkansas, drawing protest
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Tech startup Swarm Aero opened a Northwest Arkansas facility Wednesday to build military drones near Fayetteville's Drake Field, with plans to create hundreds of jobs.
Why it matters: Regional leaders say the facility positions Northwest Arkansas as a growing defense manufacturing hub.
The big picture: The California-based company plans to mass-produce long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) designed to operate in coordinated swarms, part of a broader Pentagon shift toward autonomous systems.
How it works: Swarm Aero executives said the aircraft are designed to defend the U.S. and its allies without putting pilots in harm's way.
- The planned UAVs will be roughly the size of a one-person airplane with the ability to fly higher than 18,000 feet.
- A banner displayed at the ribbon-cutting ceremony showed the silhouette of a concept drone about 40 feet long. CEO Danny Goodman said the banner was at scale.
- The UAVs will be powered by fossil fuel, allowing them to carry weaponized payloads and to travel farther than electric-powered drones, Peter Kalogiannis, co-founder and chief engineer, told Axios.
- Instead of assigning pilots to individual aircraft, Swarm will use artificial intelligence to allow small teams to command thousands of drones simultaneously.
State of play: A team of about a dozen workers focused on research and manufacturing are moving to NWA now, but Kalogiannis wouldn't say how much the company will invest in the Fayetteville 80,000-square-foot facility.
Follow the money: The company is venture-backed and Goodman confirmed it has multiple defense contracts, though he declined to provide details.
What they're saying: "Our [U.S.] flagship aircraft costs many hundreds of millions of dollars each today, and something like this is designed to be made orders of magnitude cheaper," Goodman told Axios.
- "That means we can mass manufacture them, make tons of them … and be able to defend ourselves and our allies around the world in a cost-effective way.
The other side: About 20 people with the Arkansas Antiwar Alliance protested outside the facility Wednesday.
- "This is a really big international issue … and we were kind of surprised that this factory just opened in Fayetteville," Abel Tomlinson, organizer for the Arkansas Antiwar Alliance, told Axios.
- He cited an international campaign to stop killer robots, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres' call for a ban on autonomous weapons systems.
- Tomlinson is concerned the aircraft will eventually be tested at Drake Field and that it could be dangerous for Fayetteville residents.
"It's a bit ironic to me, that on a day when you've got protesters down in the street, you have a company … that is going to further ensure they have the ability to enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy — the freedom to assemble, the freedom to speak publicly without fear of some kind of retribution," U.S. Rep. Steve Womack said to reporters.
What we're watching: Swarm intends to double its aircraft team this year.
- Goodman said the company plans to fly in the next two years but wouldn't say if that means test flights or ready-to-deploy flights.