France renews Harmattan AI contract with order for 5,000 Sonora drones

Harmattan AI has secured a renewed program of record from the French Ministry of the Armed Forces for its Sonora drone, with the Direction générale de l’armement (DGA) increasing its order fivefold through an additional 5,000 units. The French defense startup announced the contract on June 23, 2026. 

The renewal builds on the company’s first program of record, signed with the DGA in June 2025, under which Harmattan AI delivered 1,000 Sonora units within six months. The DGA confirmed receipt of that initial batch on January 30, 2026. The follow-on order supports future autonomous unmanned operations across French military units, according to the company. 

A training drone tested during Orion 2026 

#image_titleThe expanded procurement follows Sonora’s deployment during Orion 2026, described as France’s largest military exercise since the Cold War, which ran from February 8 to April 30, 2026. 

Sonora is a quadcopter micro-drone weighing about 1.8 kilograms, with a range beyond two kilometers and roughly 40 minutes of endurance. Designed to be airborne in under a minute, it carries an electro-optical camera and an optional infrared sensor from French optronics firm Lynred, and its onboard processor identifies and tracks targets without relying on GPS or a network link. While Harmattan AI markets the platform as a short-range ISR system, the DGA acquired it primarily to familiarize soldiers with operating against and alongside drones on the battlefield, at a unit cost reported below €1,000. 

Mouad M’Ghari, the company’s CEO and co-founder, said meeting the DGA’s standards with “a system that entered service only one year after its initial conception” demonstrated Harmattan AI’s ability to field autonomous systems at speed. 

Industrial build-out 

To meet rising demand, Harmattan AI said it has established a 6,000-square-meter production site in the Paris region with capacity for 10,000 units per month, a scale it says makes it the leading producer of unmanned defense systems in Western Europe.

The company is extending that footprint abroad. On June 17, 2026, during the Eurosatory exhibition in Paris, Harmattan AI announced a strategic partnership with Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces to set up local production of autonomous systems and an artificial intelligence research center in the country. No financial terms, volumes, or timelines were disclosed. The deal marks the firm’s first industrial footprint outside France and its first announced customer beyond NATO and Ukraine, with Rabat citing plans to field autonomous air defenses at scale from 2026.

The company has grown quickly since its founding in 2024. It became France’s first defense unicorn after a $200 million Series B in January 2026 led by Dassault Aviation, which is partnering with the startup to integrate controlled autonomy into the Rafale F5 and its associated UCAS combat drone. Beyond Sonora, its portfolio includes the Gobi interceptor built to neutralize hostile UAVs, while the firm has also secured an order for 3,000 autonomous systems from the UK Ministry of Defence.The post France renews Harmattan AI contract with order for 5,000 Sonora drones appeared first on AeroTime.

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