PDW: Racing Concern Now Makes Drones For The Modern Warfighter

The company specializes in quad copters with anti-jam radio tech and AI

  • PDW makes drones and AI systems to support warfighters on the modern battlefield.
  • The company was co-founded by members of the Drone Racing League.
  • The tech needs to be easy to use and reliable in all sorts of conditions.
PDW drone midflight
PDW drone midflight.

PDW

To create a successful global sporting event, the Drone Racing League (DRL) created radio technology and designed drones that could go long distances, withstand loads of punishing courses, and work robustly without fail. The crew would go from Saudi Arabia to Atlanta to London with a robotic production system, intricate timing routines, and high-speed drones that worked no matter where they were deployed.

It's no surprise, then, that the League started getting some attention from the Department of Defense.

Ryan Gury, one of the co-founders of the Drone Racing League, told Lifewire that he pivoted from the Racing League to help start PDW (formerly known as Performance Drone Works but now just referred to as the acronym) in 2018.

Military applications, though, are very different from consumer considerations.

"Consumer tech is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and compliance and heavily regulated radio and drone technologies," Gury told us. "The first thing that we created was a radio system that could never be jammed. We knew from traveling with DRL that radio signals were really fragile."

The New Air Force

PDW camera drone in flight
PDW camera drone in flight.

PDW

The self-described team of "hardcore quadcopter nerds" made a radio that couldn't be jammed, and they tested it at a big event called Black Dark in 2018. They outperformed systems that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and they knew they were onto something.

Flash forward to today in 2024, and Gury's company provides small robotics to replace air support.

"It's like a new Air Force, right? With medium-sized quadcopters that come out of your backpack," he said. "They can deliver a variety of different missions from blood and resupply to signals intelligence to high-end intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and even anti-armor, which is what we're seeing in Ukraine."

Gury said that FPV (First-Person View) drones like PDW's are statistically surpassing artillery in small arms equipment for the first time since World War I, according to Ukrainian generals. What that does, he said, is push the frontline away from the warfighter while still delivering effects as big as artillery can.

Military Grade Drones

PDW camera drone in a soldier's hands
PDW camera drone in a soldier's hands.

PDW

While the US military's drones were designed for the war on terror, Gury says PDW's quadcopters are designed for more modern uses, using advanced robotics and AI to support the efforts of today's military personnel.

"We believe that we're going to be able to offer a considerable advantage to the American defense warfighter," Gury said. "And that's just an amazing thing to participate in. Our guys are sent all over the world to do heroic work. We develop all different types of technologies, [like] radios, drones, payload [systems], AI software, [and more]. We want to be the great American small drone company."

While PDW may have its roots in consumer and racing tech, these days it's all military. The quadcopters have to work on radio bands not allowed to consumers by the FCC. They use thermal cameras and sensors for night work. They must integrate with military tech like Ukraine's medium-range quadcopter, the Baba Yaga. The drones have to be able to fly in wind, rain, snow, and all sorts of inclement weather.

You won't find drones like that at Best Buy.

"That's like asking a Prius to do the work of a Humvee," Gury said. "Drones [must] be delivered tactically, deployed in environments that are jammed with GPS and jammed with RF. [They're] being flown at night and in the wind and the rot in the mud and the rain and have sensors that don't emit lights, you can't see them with night-vision goggles (NVGs). [Our drones allow] you to understand and see thermally, what's going on with our automatic target recognition. It's more of an assault-style, tactical way of developing a drone, and that's what we specialize in."

These small drones can be carried in a backpack, they need no runway or hard surface to land on. They're not limited by fixed-wing physics, either: these drones are more precise.

"A quadcopter is just a laser beam," Gury said. "It's just the ultimate sensor. It has no regard for aerodynamics. There is no airfoil on it. It just beats air into submission. And it's just a high-precision computer. [This will] shape small robotics into the future."

Military Surveillance Drones

PDW drone at night
PDW drone at night.

PDW

So what does a typical use case look like in terms of a soldier and his or her quadcopter? Not surprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) is involved.

"We look at AI as a way to shape and ease the burden on the warfighter," Gury said. "Very simply, [we tell it to] 'circle me, circle my position, ping me if you see a bad guy.'"

The system allows a small quadcopter to fire into a specific area, send video of suspicious activity, or fly a grid surveillance pattern.

"[We allow] AI to supplement the cognitive burden of humans," Gury said. "I think AI often draws upon a fantasy world of dystopia. I think our government in our State Department will manage that. But for us, it's just a tactical tool to help achieve the mission."

We're Not Racing Anymore

Soldier deploying PDW drone from backpack
Deploying a PDW drone from a backpack.

PDW

The Drone Racing League started looking at FPV drones as a way of managing 3D space and volume, according to Gury, and doing that via high-end racing.

"There's nothing faster than FPV orders of magnitude faster than F1 (racing)," he said. "The reaction speed, the acceleration; it's literally zero to 100 miles in a 10th of a second. It just does exactly what you want to do. As your sticks are moving on your hand controller, the drone is moving as well, [and] there are no lanes, right?"

In a battle situation, though, artillery (parabolic trajectories) and small arms fire (straight trajectories) are included in the high-speed, quick-reaction types of situations. Giving them technologies that can handle all of the above, Gury said, will help our warfighters stay ahead of their enemies and stay safe.

"That's really what we do," said Gury.

Was this page helpful?