While the organization’s counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) efforts date back several years, the work by the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center is part of Project Flytrap taking place in Europe.

Flytrap is a joint U.S. and U.K. effort to test new counter-UAS technologies in order to eventually incorporate them into formations. It began in the European theater last month, and may become a standard, yearly exercise, expanding on innovation and experimentation while building on lessons learned, Army officials said.

The event initially sought to bring these technologies down to the squad level and seek to lower the cost per drone defeated through new methods and technologies.

The U.S. military has been behind the cost curve when trying to thwart small drones, using million-dollar missiles to defeat large numbers of inexpensive UAS.

C-UAS has proved to be a difficult problem for the Army and joint force, dating back several years when terrorist and insurgent groups in the Middle East began strapping homemade explosives onto commercial drones and dropping them on troops’ positions.

The problem has grown since then, as evidenced in Ukraine’s war with Russia where first-person-view drones have been a prominent fixture of the fight. Based on its observations, the Army has realized it must up its game to protect its own forces from these types of attacks that will be inevitable in future conflicts.

Part of the problem is there aren’t many commercial C-UAS solutions on the market, akin to the ballooning availability of drones. And even if there were easy counter-drone solutions on the market, the military must knit them together to create a system of systems for thwarting overhead threats through a command and control architecture.

That’s where the C5ISR Center comes in.

“The genesis of it was create a C2 architecture that worked for counter-UAS that included individual soldiers all the way up to our joint partners,” Brandon Dodd, mechanical engineer with C5ISR Center, said in an interview. “How are we going to get data from individual sensors to individual soldiers and then all the way up and over to our partners? How does that look at each level? Where are the hiccups throughout that architecture? That’s where we came in, was we had some projects that were existing in counter-UAS.”

Flytrap aims to not only develop and test counter-UAS technologies and strategies, but inform new tactics for the Army in how to thwart these threats in the future.

The C5ISR Center serves as the Army’s science and technology hub, looking at problems and gaps that exist and beginning research and development through government solutions, at first, to solve them. They then work with industry to proliferate those solutions and get them into the field to soldiers and units.

The work for Flytrap is no different.

The C5ISR Center began by looking at best-of-breed sensors and working to link them up through a command and control architecture through the Army’s Android Tactical Assault Kit, or ATAK, where data from the sensors were shared across the force.

That work started with a set of commercial-off-the-shelf sensors that initially were stationary and tripod mounted.

The team then transitioned those stationary capabilities to vehicle-mounted tools to allow units to sense on the move — a more realistic scenario given these are maneuver units that have to go fast on the battlefield.

“Through rapid innovation, we’ve been able to adapt our sensors and effectors that are traditionally static and turn them into something mobile that fits the needs of the Army. To me, as a former operator, that’s a really big deal to have something that you can actually use when you go outside the wire,” Mike Moore, an engineering technician with the C5ISR Center who has been on the ground supporting Flytrap, said. “We’ve been able to mold the sensors and effectors and infuse them into a way that meets the soldiers’ needs on the ground, using a layered approach to command and control. The layered approaches we found is a necessity. We created one common operating picture using ATAK, something that that soldiers already have, we didn’t invent something new.”

The C5ISR team worked tightly with various industry partners on not only the vehicle integration, but constant software fixes and iteration in real-time with the unit to improve how the system worked based on feedback from troops during the exercise.

“We’ve shown that through some of our sensors that we’ve been able to solve these … lengthy software development problems very rapidly through how soldiers actually use the equipment and the tactics in which they employ them,” Moore said.

The team worked with V Corps and specifically 2nd Cavalry Regiment, initially planning to outfit a platoon but grew to a company element. The exercise has used Strkyers thus far, but the technologies are meant to be platform agnostic and capable across domains, officials said.

There were challenges to adapting a static, stationary sensor system to something that was mobile. Physics constraints posed challenges such as certain acoustic sensors that become more limited when they’re moving. The team at first developed quick fixes with industry to determine how best to employ the sensors in a way that they remain effective and still support maneuver operations.

One of those fixes was a way to pull the sensors off and set them up in a timely manner to provide the coverage needed.

The team developed a couple of different command and control layers — mostly through ATAK — and a variety of sensing modalities for drone detection and one modality for defeating them.

Sensor fusion was developed as to not cognitively overburden soldiers and reduce the amount of information they received. The C2 architecture allowed forces to not be co-located with the sensor and effector in order to use it. Because it was tied to ATAK, forces up and down echelon could track systems and cue the effectors, allowing for distributed command and control.

The government and industry teams were working hand-in-hand on the integration software in near real-time during the exercise.

“In terms of the other sensors where we created a whole new way for this for soldiers to employ them, we worked directly at the exercise with the vendor where we were modifying how our integration software works, how we were displaying things on a C2 system,” Dodd said. “Those things were stuff that we modified on the government side while the vendor actually was modifying their proprietary software on their side.”

Soldiers tested these sensors and systems in realistic environments overseas in almost live-fire scenarios.

“We’ve been able to incorporate realistic scenarios and knowledge of current [tactics, techniques and procedures] to help push these systems in a direction that apply real-world lessons learned. We’re not we’re not just creating something that works. We’re creating something that works in our current environment,” Moore said, adding there was an opposing force going against the unit while it maneuvered.

The next iteration of Flytrap will take place at the end of this month and will focus on conducting counter-UAS operations at the company and battalion-minus level for multi-day missions, according to Army officials. The soldiers will see a faster tempo, more realistic scenario to stress their skills and the systems.

“As we get into the exercise occurring in July, that’s certainly going to ramp up more where there’s even more live threats and it’s even more realistic for what they might see in a place like Ukraine,” Kevin White, global operation support and threat chief at C5ISR Center, said.

Officials noted that the team and unit have gone through the early phases and are hitting their stride through the first couple of iterations.

“Now it’s really, we do have some minor tweaks that we’re going to make from the engineering or technical aspects, but most of it is allowing the soldiers to now utilize what they’ve learned over the last few exercises and employ them while doing their other job,” Dodd said. “Allow a maneuver unit to do their normal mission and then add counter-UAS as the aside, that we see it going to be. Do that and then slowly ramp that up throughout the next exercise so that we stress it to its max while seeing what lessons [were] learned or how they incorporated it to their current mission.”

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Tucked into the subcommittee’s new markup of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2025 is a proposal that would mandate the defense secretary to name an “executive agent responsible for providing oversight of” the department’s efforts, training and technology programs to thwart risks associated with “small unmanned aircraft and systems.”

It’s no secret that drones have been transforming how troops fight at a tactical level on contemporary battlefields, like in Ukraine and the Middle East. 

Since October, U.S. forces in the Red Sea have been on alert and shooting down less sophisticated, one-way attack drones being fired from Yemen by the Iran-backed Houthis, in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza. The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer Bill LaPlante recently warned that it’s “getting too expensive” to have to mostly curb those threats with missiles and assets from Navy destroyers or fighter jets.

Notably, the Defense Department’s Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) was launched in 2020 to experiment with and enable the deployment of various counter-drone weapons — including interceptors, lasers, high-power microwaves and electronic warfare systems. However, there’s still much to be done by DOD to fully field and scale UAS attack countermeasures, and appropriate training mechanisms and doctrine.

The House subcommittee’s proposal does not explicitly call out the JCO, or clarify how that office would coordinate with a new counter-drone executive agent. (DefenseScoop requested further information from multiple congressional spokespersons Monday.)

But according to the legislative text, the executive agent’s main responsibilities would include: coordinating and integrating joint requirements to counter threats posed by small drones; providing “a common individual training” to military personnel “on countering such threats;” and executing “joint research, development, test, and evaluation activities on behalf of the military departments with respect to counter-UAS systems.” 

The mandate, the bill states, would be carried out in compliance with DOD Directive 5101.1, which outlines guidance for DOD executive agent designations and was last updated in 2022.  

“As witnessed on the battlefield in Ukraine, the United States has been late to realize the world is changing in response to the proliferation of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). That’s why my subcommittee mark supports codifying a U.S. Defense Department executive agent who will be responsible for overseeing counter small unmanned aircraft. This is crucial to enabling the U.S. military to respond to rapidly evolving challenges, address the organizational gap for battlefield sensing, and advance our defensive capability.” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., chairman of the subcommittee, said in a statement to DefenseScoop.

Updated on May 14, 2024, at 11:35 AM: This story has been updated to include a statement from Rep. Rob Wittman.

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“This incident is absolutely not a fluke. U.S. military personnel and infrastructure — both abroad and at home — are going to be exposed to drone attacks, and we can expect the sophistication of the technology and tactics to increase,” Caitlin Lee, director of RAND’s Acquisition and Technology Policy Program, told DefenseScoop this week.

Led by U.S. Central Command, the Defense Department’s investigation is ongoing and government officials have not yet shared a full assessment of what happened in the strike. 

But according to initial reports, a kamikaze drone flew near service members’ living quarters at a small base in Jordan called Tower 22 at the same time as a U.S. surveillance drone — and essentially confused American forces, resulting in no air defenses being deployed.

“Our teammates were killed by radical militias backed by Iran and operating inside Syria and Iraq. In the aftermath of the vile Hamas terrorist assault on Israel on October 7th, terrorist groups backed by Iran and funded by Iran have tried to create even more turmoil, including the Houthis attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters during a Pentagon press briefing on Thursday.

“This particular attack was egregious in that, you know, the attack was on the sleeping area of … our base. And again, Kata’ib Hezbollah and other elements continue to attack our troops. And again, I think, at this point we should — it’s time to take away even more capability than we’ve taken in the past,” Austin said.

In separate discussions with DefenseScoop this week, four defense experts shed light on the state of America’s sensing and air defense capabilities, and how global war on terrorism (GWOT) technologies might need to be adapted or enhanced to thwart the increasing sophistication of adversaries’ weapons and forces.

‘A threat we must respect’

For Patrick “Krown” Killingsworth, director of autonomy product at EpiSci, the “loss” associated with the Jan. 28 drone assault is heartbreaking and “has a personal poignancy.”

“As a former USAF F-15C and F-22 pilot I was a member of an air dominance community that dedicated their lives to protecting American and allied forces from aerial attack. We took an immense amount of pride in the fact that no U.S. forces had been killed by enemy air action since April 15th, 1953,” Killingsworth told DefenseScoop. 

Building on prior expertise as an Air Force fighter pilot and test pilot, Killingsworth now works to help deliver trusted autonomy solutions for the DOD. 

To him, this latest attack in Jordan demonstrates that while the U.S. must maintain advantage against high-end threats, the tactical capabilities of widely proliferated drones must also be taken very seriously at this time. 

“Unmanned aerial systems pose a threat that is a significant departure from those that we’ve historically been concerned with — but will be a characteristic of any future conflict and the U.S. must invest in the resources to prepare for the future fight,” Killingsworth said. 

“Also, I would point out that we should not yet classify the drone as ‘undetected,’ all that’s clear now is that it wasn’t successfully intercepted,” he added.

The experts who spoke to DefenseScoop generally agreed that what happened on Jan. 28 can be considered representative of the rapidly evolving technologies that are being deployed in a range of different conflict areas.

“This is not something we should categorize as a one-off attack. The capability for similar attacks in the region almost certainly exists — it’s a threat we must respect. The combat utility of these systems is undeniable, and the United States must make sure that we too take advantage of capabilities they can bring to our own forces,” Killingsworth said.

To Tarek Abdelzaher — a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois’ Grainger College of Engineering, who also leads the Internet of Battlefield Things Alliance — the UAS incident was alarming, particularly “because it shows that an adversary can learn to penetrate our defenses by exploiting our own safety systems against us.”

“In this case, as we now know, the base was expecting a friendly drone at the same time as the enemy drone attacked, which caused hesitation and delayed the reaction to the foreign threat,” he noted. “This is very unfortunate.”

A wide variety of UAS-spotting technologies are already available to the Defense Department. 

Capabilities exist that can detect the presence of drones on thermal cameras (because engines are hot), electromagnetic signatures (the fingerprint of drone electronics), or even sound, allowing the defense system to tell a lot about a UAS’ type, speed, and location, according to Abdelzaher. And, the actual detectors and interceptors are not very big — often ranging from something a single soldier can carry to larger vehicle-mounted and shipboard systems. 

“Drone detection is the easy part. The harder problem is to automatically tell with confidence whether this is a friend or a foe, when both are present simultaneously,” he said.

In 2021 — pointing to decreased tensions with Iran — the Biden administration removed several air defense systems from multiple Middle East countries.

Still, as of October 2023, the U.S. maintains “a significant air defense presence in the Middle East,” including Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems in Saudi Arabia, Patriot surface-to-air missile systems in several countries, and deployments of F-16 and other aircraft across the region, Mohammed Soliman, director of the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program, explained.

“Crucially, a vulnerability exists in this deployment: most systems are not currently calibrated to detect kamikaze drones or loitering munitions. Unlike traditional ballistic missiles, these drones fly at lower altitudes and speeds, are smaller and cheaper, and are only detectable at short range,” he said.

That means “industry will need time to develop and deploy new defense systems capable of countering these agile, low-altitude drones,” Soliman told DefenseScoop.

He and some of the other experts suggested that America’s post-9/11 war on terror’s main defense technologies are becoming more and more outdated, and even lagging years behind steady and quickly moving advancements in warfare capabilities.

“Technology advancements haven’t just pushed the boundaries of warfare; they’ve eroded the decades-long monopoly the U.S. held in defense technology, leveling the playing field in worrying ways. Drones epitomize this shift. Cheap, lightweight, targeted, and easily replaced, they pose a significant and often invisible threat. This harsh reality exposes a critical failing: the U.S. military has been, and continues to be, underprepared for the contemporary threat landscape,” Soliman said.

America’s air defense capabilities around the Middle East also include counter-rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) systems. 

“C-RAM is a point defense solution for drone attacks, and there are a variety of others for both detection and interdiction,” Lee said.

Lee — a political scientist and longtime researcher of innovation, force planning, emerging technology and organizational culture — explained that it’s typically not difficult to detect very large drones, provided air defense systems are “turned on.”

However, it’s becoming clear that U.S. adversaries will continue to develop new tactics in the near term to evade detection. 

“For example, they might closely follow the flight path of friendly drones on approach,” Lee said, noting that air defenses at times may be turned off when friendly aircraft are expected to land, creating an opportunity for adversary aircraft to follow closely behind. 

“Small commercial-derivative drones — like the ones used in Ukraine — pose a much harder detection and interdiction challenge. Air defense radars were all originally designed to detect large, fast aircraft — not low-flying, slow and small drones that look like birds or a variety of other flying objects. And even when anti-aircraft systems detect small drones, the cost of shooting them down is much higher than the cost of the drone itself, creating a very unsustainable and unfavorable cost-exchange ratio,” Lee said. 

“The problem is only going to get harder as adversaries start to deploy drone swarms, which could potentially overwhelm air defenses,” she noted.

What is needed

America’s relationship with Iran is evolving, complex and historically tense.

“Iran seeks to operate under a cloak of plausible deniability, providing money, weapons and training to militant groups in the Middle East who share Tehran’s opposition to U.S. interests and objectives in the region. Unmanned systems are perfect weapons to ensure that plausible deniability, and Iran is a top supplier of these weapon systems,” Lee explained. 

The Iranian military backs and equips dozens of militias in the region. But at this point, it’s still unclear how much of a role Iran played in the actual execution of the Jan. 28 attack on U.S. forces.

“Iran’s interests may not always be completely aligned with these militant groups, but so far it has not been willing to turn off the spigot, either, and we can expect militant groups to continue to capitalize on this,” Lee said. 

“China and Turkey are also major drone exporters in the region. Drones are relatively low-cost and easy to operate, making them a weapon of choice for middle powers, non-state actors and individuals who seek to maximize the lethality on a budget. So we can expect to see the global market for combat-capable drones — both military grade and commercially derivative — to continue to grow,” she also noted.

As tensions in and around the Red Sea show no signs of immediately waning, Iran and its proxies are also posing significant cyber threats to U.S. interests, according to some analysts. 

“As the conflict in Gaza persists, and considering Iran’s recent attack on American forces in Jordan and the impending U.S. response, the risk of cyber attacks on U.S. networks and infrastructure — both domestically and internationally — is set to escalate sharply. Iran-based cyberattacks have already jeopardized water and wastewater facilities in several U.S. states by exploiting vulnerabilities in computer systems manufactured by Israel that operate these facilities,” Soliman said.

DefenseScoop asked experts to share suggestions regarding how the U.S. should confront these modern technological threats.

Abdelzaher argued that this incident showcases the importance of having advanced and trustworthy artificial intelligence in the battlefield that can make fast, safe and accurate decisions about threats.

“Weaponized kamikaze drones are becoming a more commonplace tool in today’s conflicts. They significantly reduce the time available for decision-making from when they are detected and before they hit their target. We already have the capability to quickly respond to such threats. The problem is that we do not want a repeat of the ‘Uber story’ when an autonomous car hit a pedestrian because it misidentified them. Therefore, a conservative approach is taken – when in doubt, don’t shoot. Better AI can remove the doubt,” he said.

Lee recommended that the U.S. work to get “left of launch” by targeting emerging drone and missile proliferation networks, like UAS makers, suppliers, and trainers, before future attacks are launched.

“The U.S. has tried to do some of this in response to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, but that is too little too late. What is needed is a systematic, prolonged U.S.-led campaign to go after drone and missile proliferation networks before they result in attacks. The left of launch approach could involve targeted attacks on drone manufacturers or launch sites, but it could also involve non-kinetic solutions: cyber attacks, interdicting supply lines, and working with allies and partners to crack down on third party drone part suppliers,” Lee said.

In terms of America’s response, she and all the experts DefenseScoop spoke to suggested that while the Pentagon has started to invest in counter-UAS technologies, much more is needed.

“To date, many counter-drone solutions focus on modifying air defense systems to detect and intercept drones. While these are good point solutions, the cost exchange ratio is not favorable. The U.S. needs to consider rapidly fielding lower-cost, more effective solutions in the realms of electromagnetic warfare and laser weapons,” Lee noted.

In Soliman’s view, although the U.S. possesses advanced UAS technology, “its utilization and development have yet to keep pace with the threat landscape.” 

“The underinvestment in sensing and counter-UAS technologies leaves vulnerabilities that adversaries can exploit. The recent conflicts in the Middle East serve as stark reminders of this strategic gap,” he said.

Killingsworth, too, stated that the Tower 22 attack spotlights a need for the American military to invest in more robust solutions that can be leveraged and adapted to counter innovations in drone technology in real-time.

“Without a doubt this attack will be studied by a large number of U.S. military tacticians. My hope is that we will understand and apply any lessons learned so that the date of January 28, 2024 is remembered for future generations of air superiority practitioners as the final time that U.S. forces were attacked by an enemy aircraft,” the former Air Force pilot told DefenseScoop. 

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The proliferation of drone warfare in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has highlighted these types of threats, but SOCOM has been looking at how to address UAS attacks on special operations forces for the last few years, Lt. Col. Gabriela Arraiz, deputy chief technology officer at Joint Special Operations Command, said Wednesday during a panel at NDIA’s Emerging Technologies for Defense conference and expo.

The counter-drone mission is usually focused on which kinetic or non-kinetic weapons can best defeat incoming UAS, but Arraiz said there are more pressing challenges to address as the command deploys its systems.

“What we discovered was that the most challenging part of this problem actually has nothing to do with the final step, and everything to do with the steps that precede it. And the steps that precede it are largely dependent on software and data,” she said.

Arraiz compared current constraints with counter-UAS platforms to those often attributed to the Pentagon-wide effort known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control. The concept aims to connect weapons, sensors and data across the entire Defense Department under a single network, thereby enabling better and faster decision-making.

“What we discovered was that the counter-UAS problem set and the challenges that we are experiencing today in this space are a microcosm of the challenges that the JADC2 initiative will also experience,” she said. “Getting systems to talk to one another, getting sensors to send data, getting access to that data, being able to use it to make decisions — [it’s] a counter-UAS problem, and at the larger scale also a major initiative and movement for the JADC2 problem set.”

In 2022, the command awarded Anduril Industries a contract worth nearly $1 billion to serve as the lead on its counter-drone systems integration efforts. But the Defense Department’s slow acceptance of commonplace practices in the commercial industry — such as application programming interfaces, data-sharing and cloud storage — has created gaps in new and legacy systems, Arraiz said.

“[Anduril] have very modern technology, but that modern technology now has to work with something that was built into the Army 30 years ago that uses an antiquated programming language and isn’t cloud native,” she said. “And so, how do you make these systems talk and communicate — especially when we’re talking about the kill chain and how long that kill chain is?”

Better connectivity between systems enabled by cloud environments would also boost data-sharing speeds, which is crucial for the projected fast-moving fights of the future where commanders will need to make decisions about incoming drone threats quickly, Arraiz noted. 

Modern software could also improve how counter-drone platforms are updated with new capabilities to meet rapidly evolving UAS threats, Stephen Bowdren, Marine Corps program executive officer for land systems, said Wednesday during the panel.

His office is particularly interested in capabilities that have open architectures and are easily upgradable — especially when Marines are conducting operations in distributed and remote environments in the Indo-Pacific, he said.

“As threats change and different threats show up in different form factors — let’s say, swarming [drones] versus individual — how will your software adapt to that? And how can a Marine out in the field download that? Does a field service rep have to come out and plug in and then do an update? That’s not going to necessarily work very well in the first island chain,” Bowdren said.

In terms of ground-based air-defense systems like counter-UAS platforms, there isn’t a single agreed upon open-architecture connectivity standard that would promote interoperability and modularity, Arraiz said. Traditional software protocols will suffice until otherwise determined, she suggested.

She urged companies interested in working with SOCOM and other Defense Department components to come to the table with capabilities that already enable interoperability.

“If your solution is cloud native, if it adheres to modern systems architecture [and] open systems architecture, if you have data dictionaries and application programming interfaces, come to the DOD with all of that from day one,” Arraiz said.

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The so-called Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance initiative is being led by project manager soldier warrior and product manager soldier precision targeting devices under Program Executive Office Soldier.

“LASSO is a man-portable, tube-launched, lethal payload munition, unmanned aerial system. It includes electrical optical /infrared sensor, precision flight control, and the ability to fly, track and engage non-line-of-sight targets and armored vehicles with precision lethal fires,” according to an Army release issued last month.

The service is currently using an “urgent capability acquisition pathway” with the aim of quickly delivering the new capability to infantry brigade combat teams. But the Maneuver Capability Development and Integration Directorate is also working on an “enduring requirement” to support a future program of record, per the release.

The effort comes as Pentagon officials are watching what’s happening in the Ukraine-Russia war, where both sides are widely deploying unmanned aerial systems. The Biden administration has committed large quantities of kamikaze drones — also known as one-way attack UAS or loitering munitions — and other systems to Ukraine as part of security assistance packages to help Kyiv in its fight against Russian invaders.

According to a Defense Department fact sheet, the systems include Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost kamikaze drones, as well as the CyberLux K8, Altius-600, Jump-20, Puma, Scan Eagle, Penguin, and “Hornet” UAS (which is reportedly the Black Hornet nano drone).

“On the UAS side, I think in some cases, yes, what we’re sending to Ukraine are also going to fit into our future [acquisition] plans. So, we are initiating a new program — the acronym is LASSO — to provide infantry units primarily with a loitering attack munition. We are though going to take a competitive approach. So, I think early increments of that might be some of the things that have been sent to Ukraine. But there’s a lot of companies in this space, so we’re going to leverage competition as well as maybe having more than one version so we can have more production capacity,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told DefenseScoop and other reporters during a media roundtable at the Pentagon on Monday.

“So yes, there is probably some overlap between what we’re sending [to Ukraine] and what we’re going to buy ourselves,” he added.

The service is also keen on acquiring a variety of counter-drone technologies to defend against adversaries’ systems.

“On counter-UAS, I think we’ve been buying systems quite extensively, both for fixed site and mobile sets. A lot of that equipment is — we’re confident in it because of how it’s done in the Middle East. Frankly, that’s where they’ve seen the most action. Some of that … is going to Ukraine. Also, though, we’ve seen some very innovative work from the defense industry on some very low cost, low-tech approaches to counter-UAS that have gone to Ukraine that are quite promising,” Bush said.

The Army and the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-small UAS Office (JCO) are spearheading efforts to tackle the challenge posed by drones on the smaller end of the spectrum, working with industry to experiment with systems and helping develop requirements.

They are “doing a good job of seeing the landscape. And I think all that will inform, yes, a broad push to invest more in both unmanned aircraft systems, but also counter-UAS. The war [in Ukraine] is showing how much they’re here and are affecting the war every day. I think you can see it in videos every day. So  … we have to keep up,” Bush said.

Not all counter-drone tech needs to be a high-end capability, he noted.

“Ukraine has been able to combine in some cases just machine guns — high caliber, you know, large caliber machine guns — with some night vision equipment into something pretty effective when it’s cued by a sensor,” he said.

However, to take out some of the larger, more sophisticated drones in the Group 3 category, such as the type of Iranian-made kamikaze drones that the Russians are using in Ukraine, more expensive missile systems are needed, according to Bush.

The Army is also interested in electronic warfare tools to defeat enemy UAS, particularly smaller drones.

“Electronic warfare is proving highly effective in Ukraine against those on both sides. So, we should learn from that,” Bush said.

The push for new EW capabilities is part of a broader modernization effort across the Army.

“With all of our weapons, we are constantly having to update them to account for … in this case, enemy jamming capability. And that’s ongoing and we are taking lessons from what we are seeing in Ukraine. More to the point, what we’re seeing reinforces the Army’s commitment. We’ve got the programs underway,” he noted, including the TLS-BCT and TLS-EAB.

The service is trying to revamp its EW arsenal after divesting much of its equipment after the Cold War ended.

The Army is “fundamentally reinvesting in rebuilding our tactical electronic warfare capability after that largely left the force over the last 20 years. So, it adds to the urgency of those programs. They’re on track, I feel good about them. But certainly, what we’re seeing in Ukraine is adding to that urgency to get those going,” Bush said.

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PEO Simulation, Training and Instrumentation has established an agile acquisition response team, known as STAAR, to evaluate rapid prototype capabilities. That process includes solider “touchpoints” that are part of the development process for the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment-Live Training System (STE-LTS) technology.

One of the platforms being used at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, is a weaponized unmanned aerial vehicle armed with a fully automatic rifle.

“In war there’s two sides to the coin, right. There’s the good guys and the bad guys. And here … we call it the BLUFOR [blue force] and OPFOR [opposing force]. So we’re chartered to develop both BLUFOR, which is rotational training unit equipment, and OPFOR, which is threat-realistic capabilities to train against,” Curtis Leslie, director of STAAR, told DefenseScoop during a call with reporters Thursday to discuss his team’s recent efforts.

“So this weaponized drone capability is a threat that’s out there that we’ve developed rapidly, and is essentially a quadcopter outfitted with a blank-less rifle that ensures one, safety, but then two, the actual realism. So that if the rotational training unit brings out, you know, counter-UAS capabilities, they’ll be able to see that particular system and then it’s on them to utilize these STE-LTS products, these engagement systems … and then give them the ability to train against some of these modernized global threats,” he added.

The STAAR team, which was formed in 2021, recently conducted its sixth soldier touchpoint at the National Training Center to test a variety of technologies under its purview.

“Matter of fact, just we just flew [the quadcopter] a couple of hours ago … And we fly it, we take it and we shoot at targets. We’re allowing soldiers to engage with this particular system. [Drones like this] will be a part of the fight just like a tank, just like a soldier,” Leslie said.

The system uses a “surrogate” rifle while operating in a “realistic” live-training environment, he noted. Leslie’s team is currently evaluating an “E-blank” weapon and a CO2 rifle.

The quadcopter currently fires what he described as “electronic rounds” — rather than actual bullets or blank cartridges — for safety reasons.

“Essentially, you know, we’re testing one [unmanned aerial system now], but when we field this it would be a swarm capability that could be, you know, 10, 20, 30, 50 drones at one time that’s weaponized. So safety is a factor,” Leslie explained.

Meanwhile, the Army will be “increasing the realism” of training by having UAS simulate the employment of more weapons such as grenades, according to Leslie.

Additionally, a tool known as “geometric pairing” and geo-fencing will allow the service to replicate systems like loitering munitions — also known as kamikaze drones or suicide drones — without actually flying a UAS into an object and potentially causing injuries during training, he noted.

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In total, the Biden administration has provided more than $20 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the start of the war. While old-school systems, such as artillery and anti-tank weapons, have played an important role in the conflict, the United States has also committed more cutting-edge tools to help the Ukrainians defend themselves and beat back Russian advances.

Defense officials have been tight-lipped about some of these capabilities, which has lent them an air of secrecy.

As 2022 comes to a close and the conflict continues to rage, a few of the high-tech items that the U.S. has provided or plans to provide to Kyiv stand out as being particularly noteworthy for DefenseScoop.

Phoenix Ghost

In April, the Pentagon turned heads when it revealed that the Air Force had recently developed a new kamikaze drone called the Phoenix Ghost that it planned to send to Ukraine to support its war effort against Russian invaders.

Kamikaze drones are different than traditional munitions because of their ability to loiter and search for targets. They are also different than other types of armed unmanned aerial systems in that they are primarily designed to go on one-way missions and crash into their targets rather than launching missiles at them.

The Department of Defense is keen on acquiring new loitering munitions — also known as suicide drones or tactical UAS. The Phoenix Ghost drone was already being developed by the Air Force’s Big Safari office and AEVEX Aerospace before the Russian invasion.

“The Air Force was working on this and, in discussions with the Ukrainians again about their requirements, we believed that this particular system would very nicely suit their needs,” then-Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters.

Like other loitering munitions, the system can be used to carry out attacks or for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. However, the Phoenix Ghost has different capabilities than the legacy Switchblade kamikaze drones that DOD is also providing to Ukraine, according to Kirby. He declined to say specifically how the new system is different.

The United States has already committed to providing approximately 1,800 Phoenix Ghosts to Kyiv, according to a Dec. 21 DOD fact sheet on security assistance to Ukraine.

But a great deal of secrecy still surrounds the weapon, and the Pentagon has been much more mum about it than it has for many of its other drone programs. Many details about the Switchblade, for example, are publicly available online.

“I actually can’t say very much about Phoenix Ghost. I apologize but there’s not much I can say publicly about it,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told DefenseScoop in July at the Potomac Officers Club’s annual Air Force Summit.

He declined to disclose how the systems are launched, how he envisions the U.S. military using the weapons in the future, and how many of the platforms the Defense Department intends to buy.

While few details have been disclosed about the drone’s operational capabilities, a senior defense official told reporters during a background briefing that “the Ukrainians have been making excellent use of the Phoenix Ghost system.”

Robotic ships

In addition to UAS, the Pentagon is also providing an unspecified number of “unmanned coastal defense vessels” to Ukraine.

However, as in the case of the Phoenix Ghost, officials aren’t saying much about these robotic ships.

“It’s an unmanned surface vessel (USV) that can be used for a variety of purposes in coastal defense. I think I’ll just leave it at that,” Kirby told reporters when the decision to transfer the technology was announced in April.

Analysts at the time told DefenseScoop that the vessels could aid the Ukrainians in several ways.

“There’s a wide variety of roles that unmanned surface systems could play, from helping to extend Ukraine’s surveillance out further and further away from its coastline, to potentially aiding in the targeting of Russian vessels, to helping to sweep Ukrainian waterways of mines if Russia goes that route,” said Peter W. Singer, a military technology expert and the author of Ghost Fleet, a novel that features USVs and other robotic systems.

“The more that you equip the Ukrainians to be able to defend their coastline, there’s a double benefit,” he said. “One, it pushes the Russian fleet back. Two, it frees up Ukrainian ground forces that might have had to have been deployed to defend coastline to operate elsewhere.”

The platforms could also potentially be used to directly attack Russian ships. However, the ones being sent to Ukraine are likely designed for ISR and countermine operations, said Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.

The U.S. military might also benefit from the technology transfer, according to Brent Sadler, senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the Heritage Foundation think tank.

“What it does for the United States is it allows us to better refine how we [might] actually use these systems in combat, too. So we also learn and are able to benefit from the combat experience that the Ukrainians get from these and how they employ them. We learn a lot. So I think we also benefit by giving them this capability,” he said.

Officials have disclosed that the systems are coming from U.S. Navy stocks. The sea service’s Task Force 59 has been experimenting with Saildrone platforms and other unmanned tech in the Middle East, but it’s unclear if the types of robo-ships being sent to Ukraine have been part of those efforts.

Counter-drone tech

Ukraine isn’t the only side using unmanned systems in the conflict. Russia is also using kamikaze drones and other robotic platforms amid what some have called the world’s largest drone war.

The UAS being employed by Moscow including ones that have been supplied by Iran — and the Pentagon is sending tech to help Kyiv defeat them.

“Right now, air defense is the most important requirement for them,” Kirby, who is now serving as White House National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said at a briefing in December.

The Pentagon has been secretive about many aspects of the “suite” of counter-drone capabilities that it’s committed to Ukraine, although it has acknowledged some of them, such as the new VAMPIRE system.

The VAMPIRE, or Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment system, is “a portable kit that can be installed on most vehicles with a cargo bed for launching of the advanced precision kill weapons system (APKWS) or other laser-guided munitions,” according to manufacturer L3Harris.

The system “uses small missiles essentially to shoot UAVs out of the sky,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl explained during a press briefing at the Pentagon in August.

The DOD is procuring the systems from L3Harris using Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funding rather than transferring them from its own stocks, so it was expected to be several months before they arrived in Ukraine.

For years, the DOD and its allies and partners has been looking for new and better ways to defeat drones.

“The U.S. particularly, we’ve had a whole series of counter-UAS initiatives going back a decade, where we’ve done demonstrations, we’ve held contests … We have a lot of funding in our S&T community, our science community. A lot of universities are involved in it,” Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said during a Pentagon press conference in September.

He noted that the DOD has been reaching out to industry to get more ideas about counter-drone capabilities, including as part of an RFI issued earlier this year.

“There’s lots of ideas. There’s directed energy ideas, there’s obviously electronic, like high-powered microwave [systems]. Then, of course, there’s kinetic kill or proximity fuse approaches. There’s just attacking the [drone’s data] link itself, taking away the PNT. There’s lots of counter-UAS ideas and techniques that are out there. We just encourage people to keep thinking about them and proposing ideas,” he said.

During a recent background briefing in December after the latest tranche of security assistance was announced, a senior U.S. military declined to provide details about other counter-UAS systems that the United States has provided beyond what has been publicly disclosed after previous rounds of aid were announced.

“We’re just not going to be able to go into specific details, again, for operational security reasons, sensitive to the fact that the Ukrainians are engaged in a fight. We don’t want to provide anything that the adversary could potentially exploit,” the official told reporters.

The Pentagon recently estimated that Ukraine — using a wide range of weapons — has been able to defeat more than half of the Iranian-built drones that Russia has launched against it.

Senior Biden administration officials say the U.S. will continue to prioritize counter-drone tech as it considers additional security assistance packages.

Commercial space tech

Commercial capabilities, including space-related technologies, have also had a big impact on the Ukraine-Russia war, officials say.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet terminals and associated capabilities have provided the Ukrainian military with vital communication channels and enabled its warfighters stay connected even when their usual comms networks are hindered during the conflict.

“It’s been huge in terms of their ability to communicate, and then to coordinate planning and operations,” a senior U.S. military official told reporters during a background briefing in October.

“In terms of its employment, I mean, well, I don’t think you can overestimate or overemphasize the impact that being able to communicate has. You know, one of the first things you try to do in a fight is to reduce your opponent’s ability to communicate, and in this case, you know, Starlink has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield because it’s allowed the Ukrainians multiple connections, and in that regard, has been very, very helpful in their efforts at the tactical and strategic level,” the official added.

However, concerns have been raised that at some point Ukraine could lose access to Starlink over funding issues or other complications.

The Pentagon has included other satcom capabilities in security assistance packages, including antennas that can work with different types of satellites.

The latest tranche announced in December included unspecified “SATCOM terminals and services” under the USAI portion of the package.

“This will augment existing Ukrainian capabilities, but since we’re in the process of contract negotiations I can just say we’re talking to a number of vendors, but can’t be more specific than that,” a senior Defense official told reporters during a background briefing.

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The system is part of a new security assistance package valued at $1.85 billion that was unveiled as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington to meet with President Biden at the White House and deliver a primetime address to Congress. The commitment of additional aid comes as Kyiv and other areas are under fire from drones and missiles.

“The Patriot air defense system in this security assistance package is one of the world’s most advanced air defense capabilities. Once operational, it will add to a layered defense to counter the full range of threats currently menacing Ukraine’s cities and civilians. The Patriot system will augment previous air defense capabilities the United States has provided Ukraine, which include NASAMs, missiles for HAWK air defense systems, Stingers, and equipment to counter the Russian use of unmanned aerial vehicles,” the Pentagon said in a press release.

The Patriot will give Ukraine a critical long-range capability that can intercept cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and aircraft. It will complement the short- and medium-range systems that have already been provided, a senior Defense official told reporters during a background briefing to discuss details about the aid package.

The U.S. military will train Ukrainian forces in a third country on how to operate the technology. That is expected to take several months, the official said.

“Patriot is by far the most expensive single weapon system that the United States has supplied to Ukraine,” Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Mark Cancian, senior adviser for CSIS’ International Security Program, said in a Q&A published by CSIS.

The system costs about $400 million, not including the multimillion-dollar missiles that it uses to intercept threats, according to Karako and Cancian.

The senior Defense official declined to say how many missiles are included in the aid package, citing operational security concerns.

On Monday, dozens of loitering munitions, also known as kamikaze drones, hit targets in and around Kyiv, according to Reuters. Iran has been supplying Moscow with these types of weapons.

“Russia has attacked Ukraine with drones and missiles since the beginning of the conflict. Those attacks had tapered off during the summer as Russian missile inventories declined, then increased again in October when Russia received large numbers of the Iranian drones. These recent attacks have targeted the electrical grid and other utilities, so they have had a major effect on the Ukrainian population. This spurred increasingly urgent requests for improved air defense capabilities,” Karako and Cancian said.

The Patriot has already proven its ability to successfully engage missiles, drones and other aircraft during conflicts in the Middle East, they noted.

However, the system won’t be able to solve all of Ukraine’s air defense challenges, they added, suggesting it might not be the most cost-effective tool for defeating the kamikaze drones that Russian has acquired from Iran.

“The high cost per missile and the relatively small number of missiles in a battery means that Patriot operators cannot shoot at every target. High-value Russian aircraft and ballistic missiles would be appropriate targets. Shooting $4 million missiles at $250,000 Russian cruise missiles might be justified if those missiles would hit sensitive targets. Shooting a $4 million missile at a $50,000 Iranian Shahed-136 drone would probably not,” they said.

A senior U.S. military official declined to say if the Ukrainians will use the Patriot against relatively inexpensive drones.

“We don’t want to get into hypotheticals as it relates to, you know, how the Ukrainians would employ the system — obviously, they’re the ones that are going to be operating it — other than to say that this will be a air defense capability, among others, that they’re being provided as part of an integrated air defense system. And so certainly, as they go through the training and as they continue to establish their air defense system, you know, various factors will be taken into account in terms of how best to employ that capability,” the official said during the background briefing.

The official declined to provide details about other counter-drone systems that the U.S. has provided beyond what has been publicly disclosed after previous rounds of aid for Ukraine were announced.

“We’re just not going to be able to go into specific details, again, for operational security reasons, sensitive to the fact that the Ukrainians are engaged in a fight. We don’t want to provide anything that the adversary could potentially exploit,” the official told reporters.

Other capabilities included in the equipment drawdown from DOD stocks that was announced Wednesday include:

• Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
• 500 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds
• 10 120mm mortar systems and 10,000 120mm mortar rounds
• 10 82mm mortar systems
• 10 60mm mortar systems
• 37 Cougar Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles
• 120 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs)
• Six armored utility trucks
• High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs)
• Precision aerial munitions
• Over 2,700 grenade launchers and small arms
• Claymore anti-personnel munitions
• Demolition munitions and equipment
• Night vision devices and optics
• Tactical secure communications systems
• Body armor and other field equipment

Capabilities that will be procured from military contractors using Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funding include:

• 45,000 152mm artillery rounds
• 20,000 122mm artillery rounds
• 50,000 122mm GRAD rockets
• 100,000 rounds of 125mm tank ammunition
• SATCOM terminals and services
• Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment

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On Monday, dozens of loitering munitions, also known as kamikaze drones, hit targets in and around Kyiv, according to Reuters. Iran has been supplying Moscow with these types of weapons.

“We do know that Iran continues to provide drones to Russia, which Russia is using to kill Ukrainians and to hit civilian infrastructure, including over just the last, you know, 24 hours,” Kirby said.

“I’m not going to get ahead of security assistance packages that haven’t been announced yet,” he added. However, “we’re going to continue to work with Ukraine in lockstep, day after day, to provide them the kinds of capabilities that we think can be helpful to them in terms of their self-defense. And right now, air defense is the most important requirement for them, clearly evidenced by what we’ve been seeing, again, over just the last 24 hours alone, if not recent weeks. So we have — we have provided some advanced air defense capabilities already, many of our allies and partners are providing various levels of air defense capabilities. And we’re going to continue to look at that going forward.”

Kirby didn’t identify specific systems that might be provided in the future and he would not confirm press reports by CNN and other outlets that Patriot air-and-missile defense systems will be included in the next tranche of U.S.-provided security assistance for Ukraine.

The Pentagon has been tight-lipped about some of the counter-drone capabilities that it’s committed to Ukraine, although it has acknowledged some of them, such as the VAMPIRE system.

Counter-unmanned aerial systems technologies were included in the latest $275 million security assistance package announced earlier this month. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to provide more details about the counter-UAS tech due to operational security considerations.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is providing American-made kamikaze drones to Ukraine, including the newly developed Phoenix Ghost. The DOD is also accelerating its efforts to bolster U.S. defenses against these types of weapons.

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The $275 million package, announced Friday, continues a trend where the United States provides equipment to help Kyiv defeat Moscow’s drones. These systems are being drawn down from Defense Department stocks and the Biden administration is also procuring these types of capabilities from military contractors using Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds.

“This security assistance package will provide Ukraine with new capabilities to boost its air defenses in addition to providing critical equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively to defend itself on the battlefield,” the DOD said in a press release.

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to provide more details about the counter-UAS tech due to operational security considerations.

In the past DOD officials have sometimes disclosed what drone-busting systems will be sent to Ukraine, but at other times they have been tight-lipped.

Drones have played a key role during the Ukraine-Russia war for both sides.

U.S. military officials are also worried about the threat that UAS pose to American forces, which the new Missile Defense Review highlighted.

“Most of our training right now is on force on force. Both sides are going to have a ton of little drones [in future conflicts]. We have to get comfortable operating in that environment,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger told DefenseScoop on Wednesday during a Defense Writers Group meeting.

“Do we have the countermeasures in place? Yes. But for every measure and countermeasure that cycle never ends. And as fast as we get a countermeasure in place, the other side or a commercial vendor is going to invent something to overcome that. We can never rest easy on that. But what we have to do is get comfortable with operating in that environment with them flying around and it doesn’t bring you to your knees, it doesn’t scare you … You have to figure out how to operate in that environment. And we’re doing that now in every single training environment. But … we’re going to see a lot more [drones], not less,” Berger added.

The Defense Department is accelerating its search for new tech to counter kamikaze drones, also known as loitering munitions, and other UAS threats.

Other weapons and equipment included in the Ukraine package announced on Friday include:

• Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
• 80,000 155mm artillery rounds
• Counter-air defense capability
• High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) Ambulances and medical equipment
• Approximately 150 generators
• Field equipment

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