What is the difference between Shield AI V-BAT and Teal Black Widow?

Shield AI V-BAT and Teal Black Widow are both aerial robots on the DEPLOY registry. They differ in maker, maturity, price, verified deployments, and how much of their autonomy is independently verified. See the table above for the full head-to-head; each figure is sourced.

Is Shield AI V-BAT or Teal Black Widow more autonomous?

Shield AI V-BAT has more capabilities independently verified as autonomous on the DEPLOY registry than Teal Black Widow. DEPLOY counts a capability as autonomous only when verified at a real deployment, not from a demo or a vendor claim.

Which has more verified deployments, Shield AI V-BAT or Teal Black Widow?

Shield AI V-BAT has more verified deployments (3) on the DEPLOY registry than Teal Black Widow (1). DEPLOY counts a deployment only when confirmed at a named site with a primary source.

Buying guide

Shield AI V-BAT vs Teal Black Widow in 2026

Comparing 2 humanoid robots across availability, pricing, capabilities, and verified deployments. Current as of 2026.

Key differences

Shield AI V-BAT has more capabilities independently verified as autonomous (1 vs 0).
Shield AI V-BAT has more verified real-world deployments (3 vs 1).

Attribute	Shield AI V-BAT View full model page →	Teal Black Widow View full model page →
Manufacturer	Shield AI	Red Cat Holdings
Form factor	aerial	aerial
Maturity	production	production
Autonomy	✓ 1 verified autonomous	—
Availability	internal-onlyenterprise	internal-onlyenterprise
Price	Not announced	Not announced
Capability claims	flight in GPS- and communications-denied environments (autonomous, verified) Multi-drone autonomous team operations (autonomous, demonstrated-once)	—
Brain	Shield AI Hivemind (foundation-model)	—
Verified deployments	3	1Red Cat Holdings
Privacy practices	—	—
Sources on file	13	9

Editorial summaries

Shield AI V-BAT

Shield AI's V-BAT (military designation MQ-35) is a Group 3 VTOL fixed-wing ISR and targeting drone that takes off and lands vertically from a small footprint, powered by the Hivemind autonomy stack and built to operate in GPS- and communications-denied environments. Its autonomy is verified-substantive: Hivemind is genuine fielded onboard autonomy, and V-BAT is the new-defense cohort's strongest deployment anchor with two verified deployments on the registry (the US Coast Guard and Ukraine). The Block upgrade adds SATCOM and a heavy-fuel engine. Shield AI, founded in San Diego in 2015, sells V-BAT as defense procurement equipment on contract; there is no consumer price.

Teal Black Widow

The Teal Black Widow is a soldier-borne ISR rucksack quadcopter from Teal Drones, a subsidiary of Red Cat Holdings (NASDAQ: RCAT). It is a hand-launched, foldable Group-1 quadcopter for single-operator short-range reconnaissance, carrying a Teledyne FLIR Hadron 640R+ EO/IR payload, an AES-256 frequency-hopping radio, and a Qualcomm RB5 AI-capable compute module running FLIR's Prism AI stack, with about 45 minutes of endurance and roughly five miles of link range. It is military procurement, not a consumer product, so there is no consumer price. Several aggregator framings are corrected here. The product is the Teal Black Widow, not 'Teal 2'. Its load-bearing fact is verified: the Black Widow won the US Army Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) Program of Record in a production selection announced November 19, 2024, displacing the incumbent Skydio. But the scope is cap-flagged: the actual low-rate initial production contract is about $12.9M per a US Army FOIA disclosure, not the larger management-framing figures, and the often-cited 5,880-systems number is the Army's stated five-year objective (explicitly subject to change), not an obligated quantity. The common 'Black Hornet alternative' framing is also incorrect: the Black Widow is a different and larger class than Teledyne FLIR's roughly 70-gram Black Hornet nano-UAV, and it replaced Skydio on the platoon-level SRR program rather than the Black Hornet. On autonomy, it is primarily a manually piloted ISR drone with assistive autonomy (forward obstacle avoidance, FLIR Prism, a radio-off stealth mode), so any 'autonomous drone' characterization is an overclaim. The registry records it at low-rate production maturity; Red Cat is a cash-burning small-cap reliant on dilutive financing.

Common questions

What is the difference between Shield AI V-BAT and Teal Black Widow?: Shield AI V-BAT and Teal Black Widow are both aerial robots on the DEPLOY registry. They differ in maker, maturity, price, verified deployments, and how much of their autonomy is independently verified. See the table above for the full head-to-head; each figure is sourced.
Is Shield AI V-BAT or Teal Black Widow more autonomous?: Shield AI V-BAT has more capabilities independently verified as autonomous on the DEPLOY registry than Teal Black Widow. DEPLOY counts a capability as autonomous only when verified at a real deployment, not from a demo or a vendor claim.
Which has more verified deployments, Shield AI V-BAT or Teal Black Widow?: Shield AI V-BAT has more verified deployments (3) on the DEPLOY registry than Teal Black Widow (1). DEPLOY counts a deployment only when confirmed at a named site with a primary source.

Recent coverage

New Pentagon unmanned czar will oversee most drone programsShield AI V-BAT · AgentRecon · 2026-07-01
Poland buys V-BAT drones to boost Baltic Sea naval operationsShield AI V-BAT · C4ISRNET · 2026-06-25
Red Cat Q1 Earnings Call Highlights - The Globe and MailTeal Black Widow · Google News · 2026-05-08
Earnings call transcript: Red Cat Holdings Q1 2026 misses forecasts - Investing.comTeal Black Widow · Google News · 2026-05-07

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