AeroVironment counter-drone

AeroVironment, Inc. profile

Q: Where can I research AeroVironment, Inc. directly?

Go to the primary sources: Av (official site) , Counter-drone systems — original report . Avoid aggregator summaries when the filing itself is available.

By Jonathan Teplitsky · reviewed against primary sources · updated September 10, 2026.

AeroVironment, Inc. produces unmanned aircraft systems and directed-energy counter-drone hardware for defense customers, including the LOCUST X3 laser weapon system for the United States Army.

What AeroVironment, Inc. does

AeroVironment, Inc. Supplies unmanned aerial platforms, loitering munitions, and directed-energy systems under direct military procurement contracts and Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) vehicles. Generates revenue by fabricating weapon hardware, integrating directed-energy payloads onto tactical military vehicles, and providing ongoing field maintenance and crew training. Expands margins by transitioning rapid prototyping programs into multi-year defense production contracts supported by company-owned manufacturing facilities.

The product lines that define the company for research purposes:

LOCUST X3
Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL)
Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL)

This profile is qualitative by design. It carries no share price, no price target, no valuation multiple, and no rating — those change faster than any page can honestly track, and the filings linked below are the authoritative source for them.

AeroVironment, Inc. drone lineup

The current public product record does not identify a complete aircraft lineup.

No complete-aircraft offering is catalogued for this company; it is tracked here as an unmanned-systems enabler.

Statuses are editorial classifications from the company’s current public catalog: active means currently presented for sale, delivery, or program work; development means publicly disclosed but not a mature production offering; legacy means retained for historical or installed-fleet coverage.

Recent contracts & awards

A dated log of the specific contracts, orders, funding, and deployments reported for AeroVironment, Inc., each tied to its primary source. This is a record of what was announced — a "selection", "award", or "partnership" is not the same as obligated money, so read each source before treating a figure as revenue. No figure appears here unless a source reported it.

ContractSep 10, 2026$500M
AeroVironment Awarded $464.8M Army Other Transaction Agreement for LOCUST X3 Counter-UAS Systems
AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) announced a $464.8 million Other Transaction Agreement from the U.S. Army PAE Fires program office to deliver dozens of 30-kilowatt LOCUST X3 laser systems for the Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL) program. The production award covers vehicle integration, training, and ongoing support to counter Group 1-3 unmanned aircraft systems across multi-year fielding requirements. Researchers should verify official Department of Defense notices and SEC filings to confirm initial obligated funding and delivery milestones against the reported ceiling.
Counter-drone systems — original report

Is AeroVironment, Inc. going public?

AeroVironment, Inc. is a public company listed on the NASDAQ exchange under ticker symbol AVAV.

Where AeroVironment, Inc. sits in the value chain

AeroVironment, Inc. is a pure-play: unmanned systems are the business rather than one line inside it, so the P&L moves with drone demand and has little else to cushion a slow procurement year.

Its disclosed activity spans counter-UAS, aerial drones, ground robotics. That placement is the single most useful thing to fix in your head before reading any coverage, because the same headline means different things at different layers: a large platform award is transformative for a pure-play, material but diluted for a diversified contractor, and only indirectly relevant to a component supplier whose exposure arrives later as build-rate demand. Retail coverage routinely applies one story to all three layers at once. For the layer-by-layer comparison across the sector, see the drone stocks research shortlist and the list of publicly traded drone companies.

What to watch

The signals worth tracking are structural, not price-based — they tell you whether the business is changing shape, which is what eventually shows up in the numbers.

Delivery cadence of production LOCUST X3 units under the Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA).
Platform qualification timelines as integration expands from the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) to the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV).
Completion and operational throughput of the manufacturing expansion at the Albuquerque, New Mexico facility.
Federal regulatory safety approvals governing domestic and overseas airspace clearances for high-energy laser employment.

How to research AeroVironment, Inc.

Every question below has one authoritative source, and using the wrong source is how most retail research goes wrong.

Research question	Where the answer lives	What to look for
How much of this is really drones?	Segment tables in the annual filing	Whether unmanned systems are reported as their own segment or buried inside a larger one.
Is the revenue repeatable?	Revenue-recognition policy and backlog discussion	Recurring sustainment, services, or subscription language versus one-time hardware sales.
Is a win real money?	Official DoD contract announcements	Contract type, awarding command, and whether the amount announced is obligated or a ceiling.
Can the balance sheet fund the plan?	Liquidity discussion and share-count disclosure	Dilution history and cash runway relative to the manufacturing scale-up being promised.

Verify task order obligations, contract options, and delivery timelines in official announcements on the United States Department of Defense Contracts portal.
Review segment revenue, funded backlog, and manufacturing capital expenditures in quarterly filings via the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) EDGAR system under ticker AVAV.
Examine product payload integration specifications and directed-energy configurations directly on the AeroVironment company website.

One failure mode is worth naming explicitly: a company announcement describing a "selection", "award", or "partnership" is not the same as obligated money, and the two are easy to conflate because they use the same vocabulary. Check the official record before treating either as revenue. Our full approach is documented on the methodology page.

AeroVironment, Inc. FAQ

What does AeroVironment, Inc. do?

AeroVironment, Inc. Supplies unmanned aerial platforms, loitering munitions, and directed-energy systems under direct military procurement contracts and Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) vehicles.

Is AeroVironment, Inc. publicly traded?

AeroVironment, Inc. trades as AVAV on NASDAQ. Listing status is not a quality signal, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell it.

What should investors watch with AeroVironment, Inc.?

Delivery cadence of production LOCUST X3 units under the Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA).

Where can I research AeroVironment, Inc. directly?

Go to the primary sources: Av (official site), Counter-drone systems — original report. Avoid aggregator summaries when the filing itself is available.