AeroVironment recently secured a U.S. Army prototype agreement for its Switchblade 400 loitering munition under the LASSO program and, in separate tests, validated its LOCUST high‑energy laser as a counter‑drone system for domestic use in coordination with federal authorities. Together with the newly unveiled Halo_Shield counter‑UAS architecture, these developments point to AeroVironment knitting its loitering munitions, lasers, and command‑and‑control software into an integrated defense...