The Pentagon wants to rapidly assemble LUCAS one-way attack drones close to the front lines
The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System was derived from Iran’s Shahed-136 one-way drone.
Robotic manufacturing start-up Machina Labs has received a contract from the Pentagon to develop a mobile, containerised microfactory that can churn out long-range strike munitions near the point of use.
Under the $9 million award, Machina’s defence subsidiary Machina Bellator will develop and deploy two of what the company is calling Edge Factories, which will fabricate the Pentagon’s Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, more commonly known as LUCAS.
The long-range, precision strike weapons cost only $55,000 and are meant to reduce the US military’s reliance on high-cost, numerically limited cruise missiles, which can only be produced in limited quantities.
Machina’s factories-in-a-box will be based on the company’s commercial RoboCraftsman system, which uses two robotic arms to shape sheet metal into usable components. According to company materials, each RoboCraftsman can be shipped in two standard 2.89m (9.5ft) High Cube shipping containers, with a total weight of 38,500-50,000kg (84,878-110,230lb), depending on configuration.
“The factories can manufacture metal structures directly from digital geometry without dies or hard tooling and deploy with minimal site preparation,” Machina says.
Using the Pentagon funding, Machina will develop and qualify what the company calls a “RoboCrafted airframe” of the LUCAS one-way attack system. Following certification, Edge Factories would allow troops to produce LUCAS weapons at forward locations, rather than waiting for replacements to be shipped from the US.
“This programme brings our ‘build anything, anywhere’ mission to life by connecting adaptable UAS design with flexible production capacity closer to the point of need,” says Ed Mehr, founder and chief executive of Machina.
The company says it has already tested this method, manufacturing and flying an unspecified UAS demonstrator.
Machina describes the Edge Factory as a portable fabrication plant that can produce complex metal parts and assemblies for customer-specific applications Source: Machina
Funding for the Edge Factory project was awarded under the Pentagon’s Organic Industrial Base Modernization (OIBM) Challenge. Co-sponsored by the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (also known as America Makes), the challenge aimed to identify and fund promising new concepts in 3D printing and other advanced production techniques.
John Wilczynski, executive director of the institute, says the goal of the competition was to accelerate the deployment of proven manufacturing technologies into the broader industrial ecosystem, “where they can improve day-to-day production operations and deliver measurable gains in cost, throughput, quality, and supply chain resilience”.
Machina says the OIBM grant represents the company’s largest single award since its founding in 2019.
The LUCAS was developed by Arizona-based uncrewed aircraft manufacturer SpektreWorks, which reverse engineered the design of an Iranian Shahed-136 one-way attack drone. Originally intended as a “threat emulation” target drone for training counter-UAS systems, LUCAS was later adapted by the Pentagon into an offensive weapon.
In December 2025, Washington revealed it had deployed its inaugural one-way attack squadron to the Middle East region, armed with LUCAS drones. The LUCAS weapons saw their first combat use within a few weeks, when the Trump administration launched its Operation Epic Fury air war against Iran.
LUCAS is a Group 3-sized UAS, with a one-way flight range of around 435nm (800km) and an explosive payload of 36kg (79lb), powered by a small piston engine.
Although currently operating as individual munitions, the Pentagon is also exploring options to swarm multiple LUCAS drones into a collaborative, adaptable group using Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomous flight software.
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