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The xTechCounter Strike winner deploys portable AI-powered radar to strengthen low-altitude airspace awareness for M-SHORAD units in Pabradė. MatrixSpace is supporting the U.S. Army’s Flytrap 5.0 counter-drone exercise from May 1 through May 15, 2026. The Massachusetts-based company announced its participation on May 12. The deployment follows its xTechCounter Strike win during Flytrap 4.5 in November 2025.

MatrixSpace is supporting the FlyTrap 5.0 training exercise (May 1-15, 2026) with its sensor providing rapidly deployable airspace awareness after winning the xTechCounter Strike competition in Operation Flytrap 4.5 in November 2025. Project Flytrap 5.0 is a major U.S. Army-led counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) exercise taking place in Lithuania in May. “This initiative brings together US and UK forces to test and validate new, low-cost, and portable drone detection and defeat technologies, designed to counter rapidly evolving threats on the battlefield.” “The Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD), designated as the “SGT Stout,” is a U.S. Army system designed to protect maneuvering forces from unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), rotary-wing, and fixed-wing threats,” said the company. “But today’s fight is increasingly dominated by low-altitude, small UAS that are hard to detect and even harder to track. These threats operate in the clutter—RF-silent FPVs, loitering munitions, and pop-up drones that compress engagement timelines and often evade traditional sensors”.

MatrixSpace is providing enhanced airspace awareness during the U.S. Army-led Flytrap 5.0 counter-drone training exercise taking place May 1–15, 2026, in Lithuania. The company’s participation follows its success in the xTechCounter Strike competition during Operation Flytrap 4.5 in November 2025.

Matthew Kling, VP and General Manager of AI Systems at MatrixSpace, leading development of the AiCloud and AiEdge platforms, answers five very good questions form the executive editor of Inside Unmanned Systems.

Matt Collins speaks with Matt Kling, VP and general manager of AI Systems at MatrixSpace. The two discuss how the Safer Skies Act has shaped demand for counter-UAS technology, why gaps still exist between what agencies need and what's being deployed, and how MatrixSpace is approaching the counter-UAS challenge as a radar-first, hardware-and-software hybrid company.