KULR and Hylio to Produce NDAA-Compliant Batteries for Farming Drones

Partnership and intent: Two aerospace suppliers have launched a co-development program to create battery packs tailored to agricultural unmanned aircraft, with engineering and production concentrated in Texas. The collaboration centers on creating energy modules that meet federal procurement standards while being manufactured domestically to reduce foreign dependency. Both partners plan iterative prototyping, with a roadmap that moves from design to qualification and into production validation for farm-focused UAS platforms. This phase aims to align cell chemistry and pack layout with payload, endurance and safety requirements for field operations.

Technical focus and compliance: The initiative emphasizes safety engineering, certification readiness and supply-chain traceability as core design drivers rather than purely power density. Multiple chemistries and form factors will be evaluated to match current and forward-looking unmanned systems, and testing will validate thermal performance and durability under agricultural duty cycles. The effort explicitly targets systems that satisfy NDAA criteria to open access to government and defense-adjacent procurements. Collaboration will also extend to manufacturing process controls meant to preserve component provenance and reduce single-source risks.

Regional and market implications: Executing engineering and production in the same state is intended to shorten timelines for iterations and tighten quality feedback loops. For Hylio, domestically sourced energy modules strengthen value propositions to commercial growers and public-sector buyers seeking supply-chain assurance. For KULR, this expands its contract-manufacturing footprint and positions it to capture additional design-win opportunities in agriculture and allied markets. Overall, the move signals growing industry emphasis on secure, certified power systems for mission-critical unmanned applications.