Blue UAS Cleared List

Blues UAS began as an offshoot of the U.S. Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program of record, which launched in late 2018. The Army required a rapidly deployable, personal reconnaissance vertical take-off and landing UAS for the dismounted soldier.

In late 2019, during the prototyping phase, the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was signed into law, and section 848 prohibited certain components from covered countries. While the Army’s focus was its own units, there was a need for NDAA-compliant systems across the DoD.

As a result of this demand, DIU initiated the Blues UAS effort in August 2020, which sought DoD approval for all five systems to reduce the quantity of ETP requests processed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Services. All five drones were purpose-built to meet the same U.S. Army mission, and while these systems were made available to the broader federal government, the original tranche of platforms was not intended to answer every U.S. Government agency's complete set of mission needs.

The first group of platforms selected was an offshoot of SRR that created prototype systems to meet a U.S. Army requirement. The second group focused on administratively onboarding existing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UAS to make them available to the DoD without an ETP request.

Now, the project focuses on responding to the emerging needs of the warfighter to add, maintain, and modify the list as needed to meet the needs of the DoD.

No. Any DoD organization can purchase certified compliant UAS by completing their own internal administrative requirements. Blue UAS provides basic verification of DoD administrative requirements, but does not restrict USG organizations from purchasing non-Blue, certified compliant UAS that fit their mission needs. Any DoD or USG organization could complete the same administrative steps that satisfy their internal requirements.

In summary, DIU is an element of the Department of Defense, hence our primary concern is providing warfighters access to commercial technology available today to their civilian counterparts. Our requirements are the laws, regulations, and policies that govern the DoD. Any UAS we prototype or evaluate may be acceptable for other USG agencies, but our focus is still on the DoD. Blue UAS is just one of many ways for a UAS vendor to interact with the DoD.

The laws and regulations that we use for Blue UAS only apply to the DoD; no one else in the government (federal, state, or local) is held to these laws. No one. If someone says "you must be Blue" to sell, they are incorrect, or they have chosen that path of their own choice, independent of any other organizations.

Blue UAS clearance applies only to the specific models and configurations listed on our website. It does not apply to a family of models or a manufacturer. Platforms are also approved only for the specific configuration(s) tested, so adding any components that were not tested would require the creation of a new ATO or pursuit of an ETP.

We are unable to provide determinations on hardware or software compliance with the NDAA and all other legal requirements, unless we are examining the components as part of a Blue UAS approval.