Member Spotlight

September 4, 2025

SkyDefense, based in Colorado, manufactures CobraJet™, a low-cost, AI-powered fighter drone and interceptor designed to neutralize hostile uncrewed vehicles.

Value of SkyDefense’s AUVSI Membership

Nick Verini, SkyDefense’s President and CEO, says the combination of insights, networking, and visibility is why their organization is an AUVSI member:

“AUVSI keeps us ahead of the curve with the latest technology and use cases, makes it easy for us to meet new potential partners, investors, suppliers, and customers, and will help promote us and amplify our success in our professional community.”

Exciting Industry Developments

According to Verini, the CobraJet platform is made possible by recent developments in machine learning:

“[It’s] a fighter drone and interceptor that can be armed with air-to-air non-lethal or lethal munitions. For us, the ability to equip our jets with low-cost, on-board AI/ML capability is one of the most exciting developments. This on-board intelligence empowers our CobraJets to detect, identify, track, and intercept hostile drone swarms autonomously, even in an EW environment. AI/ML hardware and software systems will improve dramatically over the next few years, giving our CobraJets even more capabilities, such as natural language communications between the jet and Mission Control.”

Industry Challenges

Verini notes that autonomous jets introduce new threats to the safety of military personnel:

“With autonomy comes risks of ‘friendly fire.’ When armed with lethal munitions, our jets become deadly unmanned flying weapons, and a human must remain in the loop to ensure that there are no ‘mistakes,’ either in the air or on the ground. We believe that the future ability of our jets and other unmanned aerial combat vehicles to communicate in natural language will help minimize this threat.”

SkyDefense’s Role in the Industry’s Future

Verini believes that innovations like the CobraJet platform will improve our ability to defend people and infrastructure from hostile uncrewed vehicles:

“We envision our C-UAS systems will significantly lower the cost of mitigating hostile unmanned (aerial, surface, and ground) systems. [They will] protect public venues, infrastructure, military facilities, borders, ports, oil refineries, and power plants from attack. Even the “Golden Dome” missile and radar systems need protection from operators who could covertly move small UAS near a target and evade early detection.”

For more information visit: https://skydefensellc.com/