For decades, drones were largely the stuff of science fiction, envisioned by distinguished writers and respected inventors alike. In 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about an unmanned flying machine in “The Great Brown-Pericord Motor.” In 1896, Thomas Edison envisioned automatic flying machines delivering mail in In the Deep of Time.
Today, drones have become an integral part both of military operations and civilian life. With this in mind, a recent interview with Bentzion Levinson, CEO of Heven AeroTech, was particularly relevant.
The 30-year-old Levinson, who grew up in the Five Towns in Long Island and made aliyah with his family to Israel when he was 10, served as a combat commander in the IDF’s Kfir Brigade. His interest in drones was piqued in 2018, when he participated in a national project to counter the incendiary balloons and kites that were sent from Gaza by utilizing drone technology to track the airborne devices and extinguish the fires they had caused.
“The more I dove deeper into drones,” recalls Levinson, “the more I realized that this would be a key part of the future, and would change our lives in many industries. Most of the drone market focused on small flying cameras and sensors that can detect things like fires. I realized that if a drone could become a flying robot and carry out a mission, it could totally change their use case.”
Levinson founded Heven Drones, known today as Heven AeroTech, in 2019. Today, the company is headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, with a team of 100 employees. It also has a fully self-sufficient Israeli subsidiary based in Mevo Carmel, near Yokne’am. The Israeli subsidiary is led by Yossi Weiss, the former CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and has a team of 50 employees working in research and development.
“We are powering the next revolution in drones,” says Levinson. “We have multiple product lines to solve both short-range tactical missions and long-range strategic missions.”
Heven is currently the industry leader in the use of hydrogen fuel cells to power drones. Levinson explains that hydrogen-powered drones can fly up to 1,000 kilometers on a single charge, are near noiseless, and do not generate any thermal signature.
Heven is the sole source provider to the Israeli government for hydrogen-powered drones, and its Z1 drone is the only hydrogen drone on the US Select Blue UAS list. Heven drones, depending on the specific model, can lift payloads between 10 and 100 pounds. The drones are produced in Israel, the US, and India.
LEVINSON SAYS that Heven is developing quantum drone technology that could redefine mission resilience, stealth, and operational effectiveness by allowing drones to operate accurately even in contested electronic environments.
“In a battlefield environment,” he explains, “GPS is often unavailable. When drones operate over land, many companies in places like Israel and Ukraine rely on vision-based navigation, using ground features to determine their position. However, that approach becomes ineffective for long-duration flights over vast stretches of open ocean, such as the Pacific, where there are no visible landmarks to reference.
“As a result, we have invested significant effort into solving both navigation and communications challenges for long-range operations. Communications become particularly difficult over extended distances. For short-range missions, operators can rely on radio frequencies or even fiber-optic systems, which we’ve seen used by some of Israel’s adversaries in the North. But those solutions are not practical for long-range flights, requiring entirely different technologies and approaches.”
To that end, Heven has partnered with IonQ, one of the world’s leading quantum technology companies, to develop quantum drone navigation and communication systems that enhance capabilities while maintaining stealth. Heven expects to be running a drone prototype using quantum technology later this year, and Levinson says the company will launch more products in the quantum space over the next few years.
Levinson says that AI will play a major role in the future of autonomous drone systems. “One of the most significant values of AI is autonomy. Having a single drone in the air, controlled by a controller, is one thing. But if you can have 100, 1,000, or 10,000 drones that control themselves with one human in the loop, that’s where the value increases. I think we’re already seeing in the physical AI world that a lot of the value in AI is going to start going to physical systems.”
Heven has a large AI autonomy team working with some of the world’s largest companies, including Oracle, to address the challenges and opportunities of AI use in drones.
While much of the world’s attention on drone usage today is focused on defense applications, Levinson notes that the essential use case of drones is in circumstances where it is dangerous or inefficient for humans to do a particular task. For example, drones can be used to help repair high-altitude power lines, in mining industries, and to assist in emergency response situations.
“Over the next decade,” he says, “it will filter down to our day-to-day lives where the regular things we’re used to, such as getting a package delivered, will be done with drones. But it will start with use cases with things that are difficult or inefficient to do.”
LEVINSON SAYS the biggest challenge facing the drone industry in the West is its relatively underdeveloped ecosystem. “If you want to build drones at scale, you don’t have the necessary infrastructure. For example, China is building 100 times as many drones as the US. We in the Western world, such as Israel and the US, have to up our game here,” says Levinson.
Levinson theorizes that many less-developed countries have turned to drone technology because it is far easier and less expensive to master than more complex defense projects, such as developing jet fighters. As a result, “nations that were behind or didn’t have the resources or the access to technology started building drones as a way to get ahead. Simplicity is definitely a key part of it.”
While the engineering skills of the Israeli ecosystem are well known, Levinson says that Israel’s battlefield experience – the ability to deploy systems quickly – is especially valuable in drone use.
“In the defense world, it often takes years to receive meaningful operational feedback. Today, however, that process is happening much faster. As drones are deployed in real-world conditions, we’re learning critical lessons about how they’re being used, who is using them, what missions they’re performing, and what capabilities are actually needed. You can model these scenarios on paper, but once systems reach the battlefield, reality often looks very different.
“A practical question emerges: How are operators carrying the drones? Are they launching them from a backpack, a vehicle, or another platform? Who is responsible for operating them – the same soldiers who perform other tasks, or dedicated drone units? Because this is still a relatively new industry, many of these questions are still being answered.
“The most effective way to gain those insights is through real-world deployment and direct feedback from the field. While we’d all prefer not to learn these lessons during wartime, that operational experience provides invaluable information that helps shape the technology and its future use.”
The drone industry is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, it has already had a profound impact on modern warfare, as evidenced by the growing number of casualties caused by drones in conflicts such as those in Israel and Ukraine.
Heven AeroTech, he concludes, with its US- and Israel-based team, is uniquely positioned to meet the challenges of drone technology today and in the years ahead.
“We strongly believe that what Israel, the United States, and the broader defense market need is a US-based global company with a major operational and technological presence in Israel. Israel’s unique battlefield experience enables rapid innovation and real-world testing, ensuring that Israeli soldiers have access to the most advanced technologies as quickly as possible and at scale. Those lessons can then be applied to deliver proven, battle-tested systems to the US military.
“Unfortunately, it appears that Israeli soldiers will continue to face security challenges in the years ahead, so they must have the best technology available to help save lives. At the same time, the insights gained from those operational environments can help ensure that American soldiers benefit from the most effective systems.
“We believe this partnership creates a stronger Israel and a stronger United States. Israel alone would struggle to achieve the scale needed to transform the industry, while a US-only approach would lack the rapid battlefield feedback that drives innovation. Bringing those two strengths together is what makes the model so powerful. Drone technology is changing the world today. It’s happening. And we want to power that future.”
This article was written in cooperation with Heven AeroTech.