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GovDiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley
Ep. 75: Michael Robbins, AUVSI President & CEO: Drones and the future of warfare
00:34:23
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Gov Discovery AI podcast. I'm your host, Mike Shanley. Our guest today is Michael Robbins, President and CEO at the association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International auvsi, the world's largest trade association for uncrewed systems, robotics and autonomous technologies. Michael, great to have you on the podcast.
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B
Great. Thanks so much for having me on here. I'm really excited to talk to you.
- [00:23]
A
Well, let's get into it. Where is the US Defense uncrewed market at today?
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B
Well, we're in early days of a true pivot to an era of autonomous transformation. We are at a point where the technology is very mature and it can do a lot of tasks in ways that are safer and more efficient than humans. And the technology is no longer really the hang up now. It's the acquisition process, it's the integration into the armed forces. It is acceptance. But we're making a lot of progress in that space as well. For the first time really ever in this industry, there's an actual demand, signal and money that comes with that. The reconciliation package that passed Congress in 2025, the HR1, the big beautiful bill, had about $12 billion across all different programs for autonomous systems in defense spending, which is tremendous. There's about 150 billion total in that bill for for defense, and about 12 billion of that is directed towards autonomy programs. So that's a great signal to the industry that there's a demand and that the war fighters are recognizing that autonomous systems not only extend the operational reach, but help save human lives. At the end of the day, robots don't believe. So that's really exciting that the Department of War and Congress is getting there up to speed and sort of catching up with where the technology is. And as a result, competition in the industry is really heavy and there's a lot of opportunity for companies to rise and compete and get some wins in this industry.
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A
Where did you see the breakdown? High level with that $12 billion. Is it more aerial drones, defensive offensive, maritime? Is there any signal on that?
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B
Yeah, it's all of the above. There was really a significant dedication to maritime systems, both surface and subsurface. I think there's a broad recognition. We saw comments this week the Chief of Naval Operations that the Navy has to have a hybrid fleet. They have to move towards manned unmanned teaming. And there is money in the reconciliation bill to help achieve that goal. There's a lot of money just broadly for shipbuilding, of which autonomy is increasingly becoming part of the baseline. But then there was also billions of dollars directed towards specific types of autonomous systems for both surface and subsurface. So I think there is now finally, we've gone through a couple iterations with the navy of different unmanned strategies. They have just reorganized them again with the new autonomous systems and robotics warfare program. Like team leads, they seem to be really squared away and have a good plan for how to move quickly and truly start to build that hybrid fleet. On the aerial side, it's a mix of high, low. You've got programs like collaborative combat aircraft that are seeking to be much more sophisticated systems that are going to sort of do that manned unmanned teaming in the air versus all the way. On the low end of the spectrum, we have like the Department of War's drone dominance program, which is aiming to acquire like hundreds of thousands of very low cost, attritable first person viewer FPV drones in the next very short time, in under two years. So a broad spectrum, recognizing that we need more exquisite systems as well as we need attributable things that we don't expect to get back.
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A
So question now. The big primes, the established primes that have been in the space for a while, how are you seeing them reacting to this? Are they developing this technology in house to be the provider, or are they more focused on finding those right partners, the right subcontractors that they can engage with for their, for their contracting?
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B
Yeah, great question. And it's both. There's not like a single answer there. In some cases you do have companies that are, you know, what we call like traditional primes that are, you know, actively competing and winning for autonomy contracts and doing that on their own. But we're also seeing a lot of cases where they're partnering with sort of, you know, newer startup companies or Neoprimes. You've got Boeing working with Palantir, you've got RTX working with SHIELD AI, you've got Northrop Gumin working with, you know, Firefly Aerospace. So there's a lot of examples like that where you've got companies that are maybe newer to the market or are sort of innovating sort of a little bit more on the edge, working with companies that have very sophisticated engineering programs, manufacturing programs have been really robust defense suppliers for a long time now, teaming together and hopefully then delivering even better outcomes for the warfighter, because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. So to answer your question, it's both, they're doing it themselves in some cases, but also really finding a lot of partnerships with newer companies as well.
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A
You mentioned manufacturing There that's obviously priority of the administration is to bring more manufacturing back to the US in those demand signals. Have you seen any, I don't know, concrete actions or even anecdotal activities to increase, foster the manufacturing capabilities in the US for the uncrewed solutions?
- [05:50]
B
Absolutely. There's a number of examples we can point to. And you're absolutely right. Sort of the re industrialization to build it in America been a high priority for this administration. That's carried through actions really at all levels of government. Department of War, Department of Commerce, and recently the Federal Communications Commission, the fcc. So just a couple of examples. One I think is a tremendous success story. Like one of our member companies, Vulcan Elements, they are developing rare earth magnets that are completely decoupled from China. And that is a really critical component. The neodymium iron boron magnets that currently, currently like 97, 99% of them that are in use in the US today are from the PRC. That's a major problem. And last year we saw China throttling those export controls up and down based upon an ongoing tariff war with the us they're doing the same thing to Japan right now. So we are kind of to some extent at their mercy when it comes to some of these critical rare earth minerals. Vulcan Elements was able to open up an initial like 80,000 square foot facility last year. Recently they announced a $1.4 billion deal with the US Department of Commerce as well as the Office of Strategic Capital in the Department of War to build a new 500,000 square foot facility in North Carolina. And when I say build, they're taking over a spec space and they'll be operational very soon because the initial facility was already there. So they're kind of just building, you know, building to their needs of a space that was already there. So that's a great example of identifying a manufacturing shortage of a rare earth mineral that we very much need for Everything from the F35 to Columbia class submarine to every drone and most everything in the Autonomy space because those magnets are virtually everything we use today and sort of working to decouple the supply chain from China. Another great example, recently the Federal Communications Commission had an action that really rocked the drone industry. And candidly, we're still sort of processing and totally understanding the implications where they banned the importation of all foreign drones and drone components. Now on the face of that, that is like a very shocking statement. In reality, I think we're learning that there's actually going to be a somewhat pragmatic waiver and exemption process, understanding that it's going to take time for American industry to sort of backfill the components for drones that have been sourced from other countries, primarily China, over the last 20 years or so. But that is a signal to the industry that they want companies to build in America. And as companies are going through the exemption or waiver process, some of the questions that the administration's asking before they grant a waiver is, what is your plan to build in the U.S. what is your plan to manufacture here? Whether you're a US Entity now seeking to do imports, how are you going to change that model to ultimately not have to import? Or if you're a foreign company seeking you to imports, it's like, what is the opportunity for you to do some of your manufacturing in America? So there's a couple of very tangible examples where the administration is either using, like, carrots to, like, incentivize manufacturing through dollars, like through the Office of Change of Capital or the CHIPS act, or through sticks by putting in place restrictions on certain imports. So, you know, when it comes to the drones restrictions, we're definitely going to be advocating for more carrots there. As you know, companies are seeking to backfill, particularly on the component side, the manufacturing of motors and batteries and semiconductors and other critical components that currently are frequently sourced from outside the United States and particularly from the prc. We would like to see some more incentives to help that industry stand up and get going faster.
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A
Yeah, I think those stories are really insightful in terms of, you know, not just reading the policy or hearing the rhetoric, but how are these things actually being implemented? Sticking with critical minerals for a bit there. What are you seeing? I know you're from the drone market in terms of how to access those. There's one option is obviously the ones that are in the US and are in other mechanisms is recycling them and then securing sources outside of the prc. How is the drone market thinking about that in terms of both those options? Does one of those seem like it's going to be the at least early winner in terms of where the sourcing is going to come from, or is it going to be an all the above solution? I'd like to hear your thoughts. And yeah, how the market's thinking about critical minerals and securing the sourcing?
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B
That's a great question, and I think it is an all of the above solution. You've got different companies taking different approaches, some that are seeking to secure mineral rights in other countries or to get mining permits here in the U.S. other companies that are really focused on recycling and we believe we need a whole of nation approach for both. We are so far behind in this space. One of the. You probably know this and I'm sure a lot of your listeners do too. One of the sort of misnomers around rare earth elements is they're not actually all that rare. They actually can be often widely found, including in the United States. It's the refining process that can be very intensive. It can be sometimes environmentally destructive. It can be very challenging to get it stood up in the first place. That's why they become rare earth elements. We have to do a better job as a nation of overcoming some of those regulatory roadblocks that have been in place for a long time. There's a great book about this called the War Below by Ernest Schneider that talks about how for 20 years we've been going back and forth on lithium mines when we know as a nation we need more lithium to be able to produce the demand, to meet the demand of batteries, whether it's for electric cars or electric lawnmowers or, you know, cell phones or, you know, drones. You know, all of these things in our lives today that are, you know, increasingly electrified, use, use lithium as well as other, you know, materials as well. But lithium is a huge shortage. And right now we're sourcing a lot of our lithium from, from, from other nations in either South America or Russia or, or China. And that's, that's a real challenge. We have actually significant lithium products here in the US we just can't access them. So overcoming some of those, those challenges really needs to be a whole of nation approach, whether it's through recycling or mining or securing rights abroad.
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A
One of the other issues is energy and battery powers. Interested in getting your thoughts on that? What is the current state of the battery solutions? Does it vary for aerial versus maritime versus land systems? And is that an area that we're. Well, we'll, we'll stick with that and then see where we go from there. But what is, what is the current solution? And then are there any challenges with battery life or the energy solutions for powering these systems?
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B
Yeah, that's a segment of the industry that's continuing to evolve very rapidly. And it's evolving in a couple of different ways. I mean, first, just sort of on the core battery technology. We're at a point now where the technology is evolving very, very rapidly, Whether it's for any kind of autonomous system or non autonomous system. We're seeing advancements in sort of traditional lithium batteries where they're getting more efficient year over year. Not quite Moore's Law, but somewhere along those lines where we're see significant increases just in the battery density and output. That said, there's also a lot of companies that are doing sort of deep research right now to find other chemistries that may be more efficient that are going to take a completely different route than the types of battery chemistries that we're using today. And trying to sort of do an end around, sort of just keep iterating on what we have. Are there completely different routes we can take that might produce significantly more output, more density in the future and overcome some of the challenges like the battery decline in significant cold? That's a been a real issue. And then of course, there's innovation occurring on battery management as well. So being able to throttle power up and down, cold density, like being able to keep the battery warm in cold climates. So there's a lot of different iteration happening in this space and we're seeing significant improvements as a result. However, to ultimately meet the objectives of some of the warfighters today, batteries tend to be one of the more limiting factors. So for different types of systems, you often see either a hybrid model used, or they're just not using batteries for long range at all. Or batteries are just used like as part of a hybrid system, whether that's for hydrogen or if it's jet A or traditional regular fuel or whatever the case may be. You're seeing for longer range missions, particularly in the Indo Pacom theater, where you're dealing with a tyranny of distance, like a battery isn't going to work. So it's going to have to be some kind of a hybrid system.
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A
Are you seeing the. Or do you anticipate the solutions for that coming more from the commercial sector or coming from defense R and D funding?
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B
Yeah, I mean, the unique thing about the industry today is almost all the technology is dual use. So you're seeing a tremendous amount of innovation occurring in the commercial sector that then has carryover into the defense space and vice versa. I think increasingly as a nation, we're probably going to continue to see an overall decline in what we know as traditional R and D deep, done by the Department of War, done by military labs, darpa. That's not going away. But increasingly, I think the expectation is that as you have the power of American capitalism and American dynamism, that companies are expected to use their irad dollars to be doing this kind of innovation. And a lot of the latest and greatest technologies aren't coming out of government labs anymore. They're coming from companies directly who are doing their own iteration on the edge and pushing the envelope. So I think it's going to continue to be a combination of both. I don't anticipate ever not continuing to benefit from the great work that Office of Naval Research and DARPA and others are doing, because that is an important supplement to what industry is doing. But because we are a capitalist country and we have these very dual use technologies, I think you're going to continue to see commercial companies helping to push traditional defense companies along as well and working together. And you see some great innovative companies that started in the commercial space that are now doing tremendous amount of work in the defense space and really helping the industry move along in very significant ways. Like Applied Intuition is a great example of that. They started off doing primarily commercial work. I think they're still like 75% commercial, but their defense business is growing very, very rapidly and they're helping a lot of companies do business better as a result.
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A
So that's energy. What about cybersecurity? What are the cybersecurity challenges, cybersecurity considerations for the drone market?
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B
Well, there's a couple different ways to look at it. First, there's the corporate cyber hygiene and companies really have to take CMMC seriously. That is sort of the Department of War standard. Now. It's challenging for a lot of companies and particularly small sized companies. It can be fairly expensive and time intensive. But just ensuring that at the very least your corporate cyber hygiene is squared away is really important if you want to do business with the Department of War and then you start getting into like the product security as well and having both the hardware squared away. So that's ensuring you have a secure supply chain. National defense authorization requirements over the last five, six years have required many of the systems to be free of critical Chinese components. So being able to attest to your supply chain verification and being able to prove and demonstrate that you are free of critical red components is really a challenge for a lot of companies. We have a program that helps with that called Green UAS where we help to evaluate the supply chain of a company in partnership with a company called Altana. We also help with the cyber penetration of the system as well, where we work with companies that will actually seek to expose any vulnerabilities in the system itself to ensure it can't be remotely accessed and used in a nefarious and malicious way. This is becoming the new baseline for doing business with the Department of War. We can't put systems downrange that are going to put our men and women in uniform at risk because of a cyber incident. And that's something that we've heard time and time again from the chief technology officer of the army and reinforced by Congress and legislation and others that this has got to be a top priority.
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A
Now, let's look globally for a minute here. Michael, what do those markets look like globally? I'm thinking of Israel and Ukraine specifically. But when I just even asked that question, what comes to mind to you when I say what is the global drone market for defense purposes look like?
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B
Well, it's expanding rapidly and you could kind of look at it, I think, maybe in two different ways. There's the manufacturing market and then there's the sort of technology iteration market and sort of innovation R and D side, and they're not always the same. Ukraine, for example, is doing unbelievable work in terms of iterating drone technology and coming up with creative solutions for both offensive and defensive purposes and really being able to make changes in real time on the edge, on the front lines for all different types of systems. Air, ground, maritime. They really have, I think, awoken the world to the potential of drone warfare in a way that I think has had a significant impact on our members and a significant impact on how we approach the Department of War and Congress. However, Ukraine is still heavily, heavily reliant on other countries, primarily China, for a lot of the components, whether that's batteries, whether it's motors or semiconductors or others. So with China restricting some of the exports on there, they have to find workarounds. They have to go to third party countries and have the motors or batteries shipped to some other country and then imported into Ukraine. They find all these creative ways of continuing to get the components because they don't have the manufacturing capability now. They're working on that. But it has really exposed a significant risk of not having your own sort of organic industrial capacity for some of these components and then ultimately for the systems. So while Ukraine has done incredible innovation, they're still kind of lagging a little bit on actually being able to organically build on their own systems. And of those systems that they're building, they're not free of red components at all, which means they're really not ready for export, certainly not to the United States at this time. I think they're working to overcome that. But meanwhile you have other countries that have really focused on both on the iteration side. Oh, and by the way, I'm not knocking Ukrainians, to be clear, their Back is up against the wall. They're in a fight they didn't pick, and they're just doing what they can to win the day. And I applaud them for that. And I just want to be clear about that.
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A
Totally understood Michael and assumed as much.
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B
Yeah, yeah. But it's an instructive lesson for other countries, including the United States, that, like, we don't want to find ourselves in that position. We want to do the things we need to do now so that we have resilience in our supply chain where we have options and we're not, you know, beholden to, you know, a potential adversary that we're hope, you know, potentially in a conflict with. I hope that day never comes. But should the balloon go up and we get into a conflict with, you know, the People's Republic of China, we can't be reliant on China for our motors and our batteries and our semiconductors and such. So we're going to have to have other partners. So when I think about the other nations that we can work with, there's a lot of other companies that, sorry, countries that are doing innovation and they're doing manufacturing. And Taiwan immediately comes to mind as a country that is building. They know how to build. They know how to do it at scale. They're very resilient supply chain, and they too, can't be reliant on the PRC for their components. So they're standing up a very strong drone industry in Taiwan. Other Western Pacific allies like South Korea and Japan also have a lot of great drone industries and component industries that we can draw upon. And then Israel, they've done tremendous job on innovation on both, again, offensive and defensive technologies. And we count a lot of Israeli companies as members of ours that we work with and learn from and source from as well. And then Europe is catching up. There's some great innovative companies in Europe that have really begun to both manufacture at scale in large part to source Ukraine, but also for their own robust defense in the future as well, and doing some really interesting innovation as well. So the market globally is expanding. There's a lot of opportunity. There's a lot of opportunity for US Companies domestically to supply to the Department of War and to export as well. So, yeah, I think the US Is in its quest to achieve global drone dominance isn't quite there yet, but we're well on our way.
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A
So we recently had Admiral retired Admiral Mark Montgomery on the podcast. He spoke at your the AUVSI Defense Conference back in October. Very insightful. Always, always very interesting. Conversation, he, he talked a bit about this, about being at one of the drone factories. Drones come, came off the assembly line and how does the testing process while they take it to the front lines and they see if it works. So along those lines, what have we learned so far from Ukraine's defense, from the production? You talk about this rapid iteration. What are some of the things that you see the U.S. defense Department of war learning, noting, incorporating at this point?
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B
Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, scale matters in a war of attrition, you've got to be able to produce. And right now it's something we're still lagging on. And I think that's why you're seeing this big intense focus on that at the moment. And look, we can look at the war in Ukraine as a very obvious example. And we can look to our own history in World War II. Admiral Yamamoto, who led the attack on Pearl harbor from Japan, had been a naval attache in the US and had learned about the power of American manufacturing. And he actually opposed Japan doing the strike on Pearl harbor because he understood that they'd be awakening, in his words, a sleeping giant. And he was referring to the might of American manufacturing and ultimately became known as the arsenal of democracy. Today, the roles are a bit reversed. Like we don't quite have the manufacturing capacity that we had leading into World War II in the late 30s and early 40s. So we have to really focus on that in a very significant way. I think that being able to achieve scale is really a critical lesson from Ukraine. Also, autonomy is really important for the future of warfare because what we now know with the couple of years of lessons of war in Ukraine and in Israel, the spectrum will be contested and radio communications, reliance on gps, all that's out the window. So therefore autonomy becomes really, really important for it to be able to conduct missions independently without a link back to an operator. Instead, the operator is giving the robot a preplanned mission. Here's your defined parameters, here's your operational box, here's your objective, here's your target, and it's got satellite imagery to be able to drive its decision making in terms of operating area. And then it's got whatever target, it's got pre programmed in there, it's got the visual and it knows what it's going to do, whether it's collecting isr, bringing it back, whether it's conducting strike, whether it's serving as a decoy, whatever the mission may be. It's got to be able to act independent of the operator and make decisions on Its own. So I think that's another very important lesson from Ukraine, because any future war that the US is going to be in at a high level fight is going to be in a contested electronic warfare environment.
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A
So we're talking about here a large growing market. That's no secret to anyone. Given that, how do you see the competitive landscape? I'm thinking of new entrants to the market. Is this a saturated market? Are there opportunities for new partners to come and be part of the growth? If you were to talk to say some series a defense tech startup out of Austin assessing this, how would you help them frame that conversation or that decision?
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B
Yeah, no. And I talk to those folks like that all the time. And it's definitely not yet a saturated market. And that's because the technology is evolving so rapidly. You've got companies that are working on a particular problem set today that tomorrow might already be solved. So I think the biggest thing is looking out at where's the future of warfare headed and aim for that. I think unfortunately, some companies in the space and some acquisition leaders and the members of Congress have become a little bit enamored with how warfare is being fighted and fought in Ukraine right now. And they're like, well, we need what they have today. And I think a lot of smart people in the industry, you know, are saying, no, we don't. We need, we need what's coming next and we need you to focus your resources and your time and attention there. So companies that are sort of focusing on like the next evolution of warfare, there's a lot of opportunity in that space. And then I would say that's for both commercial. I'm sorry, for both offensive and defensive operations right now. You know, offense is very sexy. You know, ISR strike, things of that nature. Like, look, drones are the number one cause of lethality in the war in Ukraine. So like there's a lot of money understandably going into that space. But on the defensive side, drones are the number one cause of lethality in the war in Ukraine. So you've got to be able to defend against them as well. So there's also a growing counter drone and I use drone for all domain, air, ground, maritime, being able to defeat these systems as well and protect a base, a foreign operating base, protect a troop convoy, protect a maritime delegation. That's another key area and growing market segment that probably doesn't get as much attention, but is arguably as big, if not a bigger market in the long run. Because whether it's in the homeland or at sea, or overseas oconus. That's a key priority for all commanders.
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A
All right, Michael, let's say you're the CEO of a startup. You guys have one year of Runway, so you don't have to worry about revenue in 2026. You're looking at 2027 and beyond. Where do you focus your teams, R and D, your efforts? What kind of solutions do you start building and focusing on today?
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B
Yeah, I mean, if I was starting a company today, I think I would focus on manufacturing because we are so far behind in that space in the US and there's so much opportunity. I've been talking to folks. I was just last week, I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yesterday, I was on the phone with folks back in Detroit, Michigan, working with some folks in other part of the country that are really focused on how do we solve manufacturing for scale. And that includes workforce challenges. It includes the use of robotics to help supplement workforce and fill some of those gaps. It's how do we drive scale and repeatability at a high quality. So I think that's an area where there's a lot of opportunity for smart engineers, those who understand opportunities in manufacturing, to pitch in right now, whether it's building a particular component that's in high demand, like drone motors or like batteries, or doing contract manufacturing, to work with companies that are not going to build their own organic manufacturing, but they've done some really great innovation and they need a partner for manufacturing. I think that's a really unique opportunity that if I was going into this space right now and not running auvsi, I think that's where I would focus my attention.
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A
It's very insightful. So for our listeners, Michael, that want to engage with auvsi, can you talk about some of the upcoming events you guys. Guys have also your member organization, what the membership benefits are?
- [30:18]
B
Yeah, so we are. We're the largest nonprofit organization focused on uncrewed systems, robotics and autonomy. We are primarily an advocacy organization. So we spend a lot of our time in Washington, D.C. working with Congress, working with the Department of War, working with service branches, the faa, Department of Commerce, White House on the enabling regulations and funding to help ensure this industry can thrive and succeed. So that's where we spend a lot of our time and our efforts. Effort. But we also do research, we do education, and we host events. And I think that's where we met. We met at our AUV side Defense event last. I think it was in November. We'll do it again in the fall this year, which is sort of like a 500, 600 person conference focused on the defense industry. We also do a couple of really big trade shows. We do one in Europe, that's in March this year in Dusseldorf, March 24 through 26. It's called Exponential Europe. We'll probably have about 7 or 8,000 people there, including a lot of the leading defense companies in Europe and in the United States, a lot of commercial companies. It's a commercial and defense show. And this year we're going to have leaders from Ukraine armed forces, the German armed forces, the UK Armed forces and a lot of others as well there to see and learn and discuss on the technology. So that's March 24 through 26 at Dusseldorf. And then our big flagship event is Exponential here in the US May 11th through 14th in Detroit, my hometown. It's not there because of me, but I love that it's there this year. It rotates different cities every year and that's like 10,000 people. It's huge. It's commercial, it's defense, it's air, it's ground, it's maritime, it's, you know, it's a really awesome event. Last year we had Lt. Gen. Donovan there, who's now the leader of the Defense Autonomy Working Group, dog and just, you know, folks like that that come and they speak, they give a presentation, but then they go walk the show floor and engage with attendees and engage with the exhib. So it's really kind of the event for autonomy, the technology event for autonomy in both Europe and in the US where so the whole of the industry kind of comes together and finds partners to work with, whether it's an OEM looking for component manufacturers or component manufacturers looking for OEMs or end users looking for products to buy. It's a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to it.
- [32:31]
A
And those are just exceptional opportunities to engage with both that senior leadership as well as I'm sure their staff will be there too. And sometimes that's the best connection for those follow up conversations. Great, thanks a lot, Michael. As we wrap up, last question I'd like to ask is so what? What's the so what? You want to leave with the defense industrial base? Let's include the allied industrial base too, from this conversation.
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B
Yeah, I think the so what is, you know, that we're here like robots don't bleed. They are the future of warfare. It doesn't mean that humans won't still be involved in warfare. Obviously they will be, but first contact is going to be robots, you know, going forward and being Able to get a decisive edge early in a conflict through the use of autonomous systems and robots is really going to be the future of warfare. And invest now, build now, take lessons, the right lessons from ongoing conflicts and iterate off of those. Plan for the future and then understand your opponent and their weaknesses and build towards that. I think if we can focus on that as a defense industrial base, we'll be well positioned to hopefully deter war. Because as one of our member companies says that the greatest wars are the ones that are ever fought. Thank you SHIELD AI for that. I love that. That's really what we're driving towards, is making it so our potential enemy has a very tough decision to make. Do we want to take this action that's going to provoke a response, understanding the overwhelming capacity of our opponent, which is going to be augmented and amplified many times by autonomous systems. So that's the so what for me.
- [34:07]
A
Michael Robbins, President and CEO of the association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International AU vsi. Michael, thanks a lot for being on the podcast today.
- [34:17]
B
Thank you, Mike. I really appreciate the opportunity and thanks so much for what you do. Thank you.