Drones Now Fly in Teams for ‘Cooperative Lift’ Breakthrough
▼ Summary
– Freespace Operations has developed “Cooperative Lift” technology enabling its Callisto 50 drones to work together and carry loads up to 100kg, four times a single drone’s capacity.
– This breakthrough allows drones to complete missions previously limited to helicopters and has secured a multimillion-dollar contract with an Asia-Pacific defense customer.
– The technology transforms military and industrial logistics by offering a safer, cheaper alternative to helicopters for repetitive or dangerous transport tasks.
– Cooperative Lift builds on Freespace’s proven Callisto 50 platform and was achieved through advanced hardware and software developed by the Australian company.
– This world-first capability will expand drone applications across defense, mining, energy, and emergency supply delivery while increasing fleet efficiency.
A pioneering development in drone technology is reshaping the possibilities for heavy lifting and complex logistics operations. Freespace Operations, an Australian drone technology company, has unveiled a “world-first” capability called Cooperative Lift. This innovation allows multiple Callisto 50 heavy-lift drones to work in unison, safely transporting loads weighing up to 100 kilograms. This represents a fourfold increase over the capacity of a single drone unit, dramatically expanding the scope of tasks drones can perform.
Long considered a primary goal within the industry, this breakthrough enables the Australian-designed platform to undertake missions that were once the exclusive domain of helicopters or large, custom-built aircraft. The technology has already proven its value, securing a multimillion-dollar contract with an international defense client based in the Asia-Pacific region.
Ken King, Co-founder of Freespace Operations, explained the significance of this achievement. “While synchronized drone light shows are common, achieving physical collaboration for lifting heavy objects presents a completely different set of challenges. Universities and leading manufacturers worldwide have attempted to solve Cooperative Lift for years with limited success. Our breakthrough confirms it can be accomplished safely, reliably, and on a large scale. We can now multiply a single drone’s lifting power by four times while maintaining the flexibility of smaller, modular systems. This will vastly increase the range of applications for drones across heavy industry and defense sectors.”
Potential uses are extensive, ranging from delivering supplies to moving ships and supporting mineral exploration to managing mining logistics, installing new power lines, and conducting emergency deliveries of life-saving equipment. This advancement means customers can achieve far more with their existing drone fleets.
Established in Melbourne in 2019, Freespace Operations has steadily grown into a global leader in heavy-lift drone systems. The company has successfully fulfilled 29 contracts for the Australian Government and Defence, valued at over A$9 million, in addition to collaborating with major energy infrastructure firms like Infravision and Enerven.
The Cooperative Lift technology is an evolution of the company’s proven “Ship Ops” system, which was recently demonstrated during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025. In those exercises, Callisto 50 drones performed complex ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore logistics operations. Together, these capabilities signify a fundamental shift in how defense forces and industrial sectors can transport essential supplies, components, and machinery.
By assuming roles traditionally handled by helicopters, such as maritime cargo delivery and operations in hazardous settings, Cooperative Lift offers a safer, more cost-effective, and faster alternative. This allows helicopter pilots and their aircraft to be reassigned to more critical missions, while drones manage the repetitive or high-risk tasks.
Central to this achievement is the Callisto 50, Freespace’s flagship heavy-lift drone platform that is entirely designed and manufactured in Australia. The platform integrates sophisticated hardware with cutting-edge control software engineered by Co-founder and CTO Leonard Hall, resulting in exceptional reliability and adaptability for the defense, infrastructure, mining, and energy industries.
Leonard Hall reflected on the technical hurdles. “Cooperative Lift was an immensely difficult challenge from both hardware and software perspectives. Because the Callisto 50 is already one of the most capable and reliable platforms available, we were able to build upon a proven system that we knew could be scaled in this manner. It might appear straightforward, but accounting for all the dynamic flight variables across multiple drones is a monumental task. The shifting load, combined with wind and weather conditions, makes this one of the most demanding problems in drone aviation. We are tremendously proud to bring this industry-first capability to the market.”
(Source: ITWire Australia)
