From Batteries to Drones: Innovation Takes Flight in Upstate NY

The vision of fully American-made batteries powering the nation’s critical drone applications just moved closer to reality. Convened by the NSF Energy Storage Engine in Upstate NY, nine U.S. companies built a battery pack, integrated it into a U.S.-made drone, and flew it alongside the platform’s existing commercial pack. For a first test of this configuration, the result is a clear signal: Upstate New York can source, build, and integrate battery technology for the missions that matter most, laying the foundation for something much bigger.

Why this matters

The stakes are national. The Department of War is targeting procurement of at least one million small unmanned aircraft systems a year within five years, which would require roughly 2 million lithium-ion battery packs, more than 250 megawatt-hours of battery capacity, and over $200 million in battery spend annually by fiscal year 2032. Today that supply chain sits almost entirely overseas. According to the International Energy Agency, China manufactured well over 80 percent of the world’s batteries in 2025, with the European Union and the United States splitting most of the remainder. China’s dominance is even more pronounced in the materials that go into cells, accounting for about 85 percent of global cathode material production and more than 90 percent of anode material production.

Building a secure, domestic source of battery cells for defense, public safety, transportation and other critical applications is central to securing American energy dominance and strengthening national security. Beginning January 1, 2028, new Department of War acquisition programs must comply with NDAA Section 842, which bans batteries and cells sourced from Foreign Entities of Concern (FEOC)—specifically companies owned, controlled, or influenced by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. The requirement phases in further: standard batteries must comply by January 1, 2029, and existing acquisition programs by January 30, 2031. Compliance isn’t just about final assembly; it also requires that the functional cell components and underlying technology are non-FEOC sourced, and the Department of War has signaled it’s considering tightening these thresholds further, including possible restrictions on synthetic graphite and coated spherical purified graphite that are still pending legal review.

How it came together

Supported by the Engine, nine U.S.-based companies across the battery value chain and drone platform came together to develop, test, and integrate the pack:

• American Power Company, with support from the Engine, served as project manager
• M2Graphite supplied artificial graphite
• Ateios Systems contributed its solvent-free electrode-manufacturing process, in partnership with Kodak, which scaled electrodes at large volumes for 18650 builds
• Elementium contributed the electrolyte
• Arkema provided carbon materials
• Battery Innovation Center assisted Ateios with the 18650 semi-automated assembly
• Lithium Battery Services LLC assembled the cells into a finished pack
• Modovolo built the U.S.-made drone platform that carried the pack in flight

Some smaller components, including casing and tabs, were sourced from Canada and Japan, and the cathode active material came from China. While this is not yet a fully domestic battery, it is a proof point for the pathway, and the Engine and its partners are now working to close the remaining gaps.

The battery

The demonstration used high-voltage lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cells in the 18650 cylindrical formats, manufactured on Ateios’s RaiCure™ platform. RaiCure™ replaces the massive, energy-intensive drying ovens and toxic solvents of conventional electrode production with energy-curable polymers, enabling five times faster production and a 96% reduction in manufacturing energy use. Case studies from industries that have made this transition show savings of $2–5M+ per year in natural gas use depending on coating line size. Produced at scale on Kodak’s existing coating lines, RaiCure™ electrodes are already delivering superior performance in consumer electronics, and Ateios is now extending those benefits to drones.

The important result: the Engine-supported pack matched the required operating parameters and performed successfully alongside the commercial pack.

The drone

The flight used the Modovolo Lift, a large quadcopter built in Utica, in Upstate New York. The Lift and its components, including the hardware, screws, bolts and the filament used to 3D-print the airframe, are manufactured and sourced in the United States. The aircraft spans roughly 1.7 meters, uses 26-inch propellers and can carry up to about 10 pounds of payload, cruising near 36 miles per hour and sprinting to about 52 miles per hour. With no payload, the batteries make up roughly 56 percent of the aircraft’s weight, dropping to about 30 percent at maximum payload.

One of its most distinctive features is where the batteries sit. Rather than the center of the aircraft, they are positioned around the outside, leaving the middle open for cameras, sensors, delivery systems and other mission-specific equipment. Its largely 3D-printed construction lets the platform be adapted quickly for public-safety, commercial and defense missions, so the drone can be built around the payload instead of the other way around.

Based on the demonstration, Modovolo believes the battery configuration showed potential for flights exceeding 30 minutes under representative conditions, depending on payload, weather, and flight profile. A second, smaller aircraft, a custom 5-inch quadcopter designed for high-speed flight above 100 miles per hour and fully inverted maneuvers, also carried the demonstration battery. The pack was significantly oversized for that airframe, yet the drone handled it well and, though built more for speed than endurance, stayed airborne longer than expected under high power demand.

What comes next

This flight is a first step, and further work is needed to benchmark performance, cost, production speed, safety, cycle life and manufacturing scale against established global suppliers. The team has begun collecting drone battery power profile standards from drone companies and the Department of War, and plans to build to emerging Department of War-aligned cell standards (SAE JA1016). In the next phase, Ateios aims to deliver higher performance through high-voltage cathodes, thicker electrodes and a new generation of their RaiCure® platform designed to break the usual trade-off between power and energy.

The next demonstration will be done in battery form-factor aligned with the SAE JA1016 cell standards. The NSF Energy Storage Engine will help set battery manufacturing and drone power profile standards based on mission requirements set by the Drone Dominance program, and Modovolo will provide real-time testing to validate the cells and the standards. Both the NSF Engine and Ateios will be working with third-party certification of raw materials and components for NDAA compliance, so that both end-users and the government have a high visibility on supply chain traceability.

The broader opportunity is to build a stronger domestic battery ecosystem capable of supporting critical applications in defense, public safety, transportation and other sectors, anchored right here in Upstate New York.

In their words

About the NSF Energy Storage Engine in Upstate New York

Powering America’s Battery Future. The NSF Energy Storage Engine is transforming Upstate New York into America’s Battery Tech Capital by connecting companies, manufacturers, educators and community partners to develop, test, scale and deploy next-generation energy storage technologies.