France orders 5,000 more Sonora ISR drones from Dassault-backed startup Harmattan AI, fleet to reach 6,000 by 2027
French infantry will field 6,000 reconnaissance drones by early 2027 after Paris ordered 5,000 more Sonora units from startup Harmattan AI, five times its first batch. Each weighs 1.8 kg, costs under 1,000 euros, and tracks targets without GPS or a network link, hard to jam and c
French infantry units are on track to field 6,000 small reconnaissance drones by early 2027, a scale that shows how cheap, attritable air sensors are reshaping ground warfare. Paris has ordered an additional 5,000 Sonora drones from Harmattan AI, a two-year-old French startup, after the first batch of 1,000 was delivered in under six months. The Sonora is a quadcopter micro-drone weighing about 1.8 kilograms, with a range beyond two kilometers and roughly 40 minutes of endurance. It carries an electro-optical camera and an optional infrared sensor, and its onboard processor identifies and tracks targets without relying on GPS or a network link, a feature that matters on battlefields saturated with jamming. The reported unit cost is below 1,000 euros, low enough that losing one in combat carries little penalty. The follow-on contract was signed on May 28 and publicly announced on June 23. Harmattan AI closed a 200 million dollar funding round in January at a 1.4 billion dollar valuation, led by Dassault Aviation. The order lifts the total committed to the French Army to 6,000 units, all due no later than early 2027.