The Drone Ultimatum Reindustrializing Drone Manufacturing in the U.S. | David Michelson, Re:Build Manufacturing
May 2, 2026
David Michelson, former Army Ranger and DIU autonomy lead now steering drone scale-up at Re:Build Manufacturing. He talks manufacturing realities, why autonomy is a spectrum, and the importance of design-for-manufacturability early. He questions swarm hype, shares lessons from Ukraine, and explains competition-based acquisition and scaling constraints for U.S. drone production.
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Scope Autonomy With ODD and DRM
- Autonomy sits on a spectrum and must be scoped by Operational Design Domain and Design Reference Mission.
- Michelson compares Tesla vs Waymo approaches: broad data collection versus narrow mapped domains to reduce edge cases.
Finance Industrial Scale Instead Of DIY Workarounds
- Fund large-scale capability rather than relying on field improvisation or policy work alone.
- Michelson criticizes over-indexing on Ukrainian DIY fixes and recommends putting serious money behind industrial solutions.
Use Funded Competitions To Accelerate Adoption
- Use competition-based acquisition with real funding to surface startups and accelerate fielding.
- Michelson praises competitions as fairer pathways than decades-long sole-source programs of record.
