A public research surface · updated continuously
The drone war will be won by whoever owns the chokepoints.
Magnets, batteries, seekers, jammers, silicon. Drone Bottlenecks maps the physical supply chain behind every drone and counter-drone system — and the listed companies that own each choke. Own the strait, not the tanker.
48 names tracked · 10 chokepoints · free, no login
The chokepoints
I
Rare-earth magnets & motors
NdFeB magnets are a China-controlled chokepoint sitting inside every drone motor.
MP · USAR · LYSCF · UUUU · UMAC · AREC · VULCAN
II
Batteries & energy density
Flight time is payload math; silicon-anode cells and non-Chinese LiPo supply are the unlock.
AMPX · ENVX · ENS · ULBI · LYTEN · NANOTECH
III
EO/IR & thermal sensors
Every ISR payload and interceptor seeker needs germanium optics and thermal cores.
TDY · DRS · LPTH · LHX · ESLT · MRCY · UMICY
IV
RF, EW & detection
The counter-UAS kill chain starts with detect/track; jamming is the cheap kill.
DRSHF · AVAV · KTOS · LHX · CACI · ANDURIL · EPIRUS
V
Autonomy compute
GPS-denied autonomy needs edge AI silicon that fits drone power budgets.
NVDA · AMBA · QCOM · LSCC · LTRX · HAILO · SHIELDAI
VI
Airframes & primes
The visible layer: platform makers and program-of-record winners.
AVAV · KTOS · RCAT · ONDS · DPRO · ANDURIL · SHIELDAI
VII
Comms, datalinks & PNT
Anti-jam GPS and resilient datalinks decide whether anything works in a contested environment.
IRDM · MSI · BAESY · LHX · MOB · NN · DOODLELABS
VIII
NDAA-compliant supply chain
The anti-DJI choke: Blue UAS framework components and the reshoring of small-drone parts.
AVAV · MOB · NEROS · ONDS · RCAT · SHIELDAI · UMAC
IX
Interceptors & effectors
The $1k-drone-vs-$1M-missile cost asymmetry forces new kinetic and directed-energy effectors.
RTX · AVAV · KTOS · DRSHF · ONDS · ANDURIL · EPIRUS
X
Private giants & exposure vehicles
Anduril, Shield AI, Skydio, Epirus, Neros — the names that define the sector without tickers, and the listed funds that hold them.
ANDURIL · SHIELDAI · EPIRUS · VCX · DXYZ · ARKVX · XOVR
Latest brief · 2026-06-12
The Pentagon is writing equity checks to drone makers; NDAA compliance is now balance-sheet infrastructure, not procurement checkbox.
DroneShield's $24.9M contract awarded by the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force 401 on June 2 — covering mobile and fixed-site counter-drone hardware, subscriptions, and services with at least $10M recognized in FY26 — was the week's clearest chokepoint validation: a multi-domain government buyer needed a deployable C-UAS stack immediately and DRSHF had it, pushing shares 3.6%. The broader airframes vertical is still digesting the late-May surge in RCAT (+33%), ONDS (+23%), and AVAV (+18%) after the Wall Street Journal reported the Pentagon is weighing direct equity stakes in domestic drone makers as part of the Drone Dominance initiative, targeting a 300,000 low-cost attack-drone stockpile by end-2027. The government becoming a shareholder — not just a buyer — in compliant drone primes is a structural re-rating of the NDAA-supply chokepoint.
MP Materials pulled back 3.0% in the prior session as the rare-earth magnet chokepoint escalated into open litigation. On May 22, MP filed suit in Texas against USA Rare Earth, a former engineer, and FOM Technologies, alleging theft of proprietary grain-boundary-diffusion formulations — the coercivity-enhancement IP that took years and tens of millions to develop and is the difference between an NdFeB magnet that stays magnetized in a drone motor and one that doesn't. The company's COO bought 10,000 shares at $54.30 on June 10 amid the weakness, a signal on conviction. Mountain Pass produced 917 tonnes of NdPr oxide in Q1 2026 — the only vertically integrated domestic chain — and the Independence magnet plant in Fort Worth is scheduled to begin commercial sales in H2 2026, backed by a DoD-floor price of $110/kg NdPr.
The nearest hard catalyst is AeroVironment's FQ4/FY2026 earnings, now scheduled for June 23 — the first full print since the $3.5B BlueHalo acquisition, against management's guidance for a record fourth quarter and a full-year revenue target of $1.85–$1.95B on a $4.6B record backlog swollen by the $990M Army Switchblade IDIQ and the LASSO Switchblade 400 down-select in May. A federal securities lawsuit alleging misrepresentations about a $1.7B Space Force contract creates headline risk into the call. Two weeks after AVAV, watch the House floor vote on the FY27 NDAA (H.R. 8800, expected ~July 15): amendments could formally classify drone motors, batteries, and ESCs as critical components, directly expanding the reshored-parts market that UMAC and Neros are building for.