DroneUp’s ATOMx Brings Air Domain Awareness to Low-Altitude Airspace
Virginia Beach, VA – July 27, 2026 – Detection technology has advanced, but detection was never the hard part. The hard part is air domain awareness: knowing which drones are authorized and which are not, in time to act. That gap is what stands between the country and real airspace sovereignty.
DroneUp’s ATOMx addresses this gap directly. It combines digital flight authorization with real-time coordination to deliver air domain awareness as a live, shared view of the airspace. It is what authorized public safety and counter-UAS operations act on, and it lets commercial traffic share the same airspace safely. ATOMx advances the goals of the President’s Executive Order on Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty.
“Everyone is racing to detect drones,” said John Vernon, CEO of DroneUp. “The harder problem is knowing which ones are authorized and acting on that in real time. That is the layer ATOMx provides, and it is what makes both safe commercial operations and effective response possible.”
ATOMx is the layer that ties existing safety, autonomy, and coordination systems together, built on years of airspace management and UAS operations experience. As a dual-use platform, it serves civil, commercial, public safety, and government missions. It coordinates across federal, state, and local agencies and informs threat assessment and decision-making.
DroneUp is working with federal partners to advance the President’s Executive Orders on American airspace sovereignty and drone dominance, as well as the Federal Task Force to Restore American Airspace Sovereignty. These priorities, from modernizing the National Airspace System to securing critical infrastructure and military installations and countering emerging UAS threats, share one prerequisite: air domain awareness, knowing in real time which operations are authorized. ATOMx provides that authorization and trust layer, distinguishing legitimate operations from unverified signals. It enriches the counter-UAS ecosystem rather than replacing it, and is not itself a detection or mitigation system.