Red Cat Successfully Completes Flight Testing of Palantir’s VNav Software on Black Widow™ Drone

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Oct. 27, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (Nasdaq: RCAT) ("Red Cat'' or the "Company"), a U.S.-based provider of advanced all-domain drone and robotic solutions for defense and national security, today announced the successful flight testing of its Black Widow™ drone equipped with Palantir Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: PLTR) Visual Navigation (VNav) Software.

The test demonstrated that the Black Widow™ drone, currently part of the U.S. Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program of record, can navigate in GPS-denied conditions using Palantir’s visual-based navigation software. This marks the first known commercial demonstration of visual navigation software on a drone already accepted into a U.S. Army program.

“This is a breakthrough moment not just for Red Cat, but for the tactical needs of the Department of War,” said Jeff Thompson, CEO of Red Cat. “Every battlefield is a GPS-denied environment, and this successful test shows that Red Cat and Palantir are delivering a software-driven solution the Army can rely on. It requires no new hardware, is ready to deploy today, and gives warfighters the edge in contested environments. It also signals our evolution into a full-stack defense technology platform, with expected margin expansion and strong revenue potential in 2026.”

VNav uses edge-based sensor fusion to generate real-time position estimates from visual cues and inertial data, enabling navigation in denied or degraded environments. Over a multi-day series of tests, Red Cat and Palantir engineers evaluated VNav across nominal and GPS-denied conditions, including high-speed and low-altitude flights.

The testing sequence validated:

• Full integration of VNav with the Black Widow™ flight controller, including compatibility with GPS-assisted operation
  
  
• Accurate navigation in simulated GPS-denied environments
  
  
• Reliable operation at altitudes as low as 150 feet AGL and speeds up to 16 mph
  
  
• Robust performance in twilight and extremely low-light conditions
  
  
• A simulated reconnaissance mission with dynamic flight parameters, completed successfully without GPS or human input
  
  
  
  

These results helped define a preliminary performance envelope for VNav on the Black Widow system. The final mission demonstrated VNav’s ability to navigate a complete ISR mission profile, including cruising to a target, descending for surveillance, flying local waypoints, and returning, all without GPS and with continuous positional awareness.

Palantir engineers reported that VNav achieved a mean positional error of approximately 7 meters over a 2.7-kilometer route. No additional hardware was required for any of the flights, as VNav runs entirely on the Black Widow’s existing onboard sensors.

“Palantir Visual Navigation performed well in real-world conditions,” said Akash Jain, President and CTO, Palantir USG. “This demonstrates our approach to visual navigation in disrupted environments –– delivering intelligent software that adapts, scales across platforms like Black Widow, and supports the Army’s integrated operating systems.”

Red Cat and Palantir are working toward a formal Army demonstration and full productized VNav capability for all fielded Black Widow systems.

About Red Cat Holdings, Inc.

Red Cat (Nasdaq: RCAT) is a U.S.-based provider of advanced all-domain drone and robotic solutions for defense and national security. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Teal Drones and FlightWave Aerospace, Red Cat develops American-made hardware and software that support military, government, and public safety operations across air, land, and sea. Its Family of Systems, led by Black Widow™, delivers unmatched tactical capabilities in small, unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). Expanding into the maritime domain through Blue Ops, Inc., Red Cat is also innovating in uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), delivering integrated platforms designed to enhance safety and multi-domain mission effectiveness. Learn more at

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