As the army use of unmanned aircraft systems has increased dramatically, including by entities which will pose a threat to america, scientists at Picatinny Arsenal are section of the trouble to counter potential threats to U.S. military by such systems.
Unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, is the term to explain a much more advanced “drone” or unpiloted flying object or aircraft used to hold out an army operation.
In many cases, unmanned aircraft are used to assemble intelligence with cameras and sensors, thus there’s a need for the U.S. Militia to have counter measures in place. Such measures may include jamming the electronics from its ground controller or shooting down the system.
The UAS challenge has grown exponentially within the last decade because the world’s inventory of unmanned aerial systems has grown from approximately 20 system types and 800 aircraft in 1999, to greater than 200 system types and approximately 10,000 unmanned aircraft in 2010, said Nancy Elliott, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Army’s Fires Center of Excellence,or FCOE, at Fort Sill, Okla. The guts of excellence is the military service result in counter unmanned aircraft system.
Elliott also said that because the worldwide proliferation of drones continues, the FCOE has produced a counter-UAS concept of operations. The document specializes in the low, slow and small UAS threat and may drive future Army efforts to develop solutions and integrate capabilities while contributing to joint efforts to counter the threat, she added.
Since 2010, the U.S. Army Armaments Research, Development and Engineering Center, also known as ARDEC, at Picatinny Arsenal, have been positioning itself as a player inside the close-in counter UAS mission by participating in an annual experiment to evaluate the dept of Defense, inter-agency and personal industry capabilities in Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or C-UAS.
In 2012, ARDEC partnered with the Navy’s Office of Strategic Systems Programs and successfully demonstrated the capabilities of fireside-control radar to detect, track, and characterize UASs. This knowledge was then used to veer a remote weapon station gimbal on the threat UAS, emulating a possible defeat system.
Given the success in with the ability to accurately detect and track unmanned systems, in fiscal year 2013, ARDEC directed its specialize in integrating the hearth control radar with a lot of current weapon systems which may potentially neutralize the UAS threat.
After a System of Systems analysis, the integrated C-UAS System of Systems included three different end-to-end “kill chain” capabilities.
According to ARDEC Project Officer Hannibal People, ARDEC was proven to achieve success with its effort in 2013, because the integrated System of Systems showed as a promising solution after defeating the UAS threat at two different test events.
This ability marks the primary time a small class UAS have been defeated by a prototype U.S. Army “gun launched” munition using a singular warhead design.
The significance of this accomplishment is the aptitude to supply a single-shot, low-cost-per-kill weapon system which could function in a multi-role capability for both fixed and mobile Army platforms.
Overall, ARDEC proved the viability of its integrated close-in C-UAS capabilities and solidifying a powerful foothold for ARDEC’s future within the mission space, in step with People. The whole C-UAS kill chain was demonstrated in a 10 month span of effort. People said ARDEC is calling to continue to develop this capability to support the Warfighter’s needs.
“We recognize the necessity to protect dismounted Soldiers in addition to combat vehicles in the BCT from inbound UAS threats” said Ted Maciuba, deputy director of the Mounted Requirements Division of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga.
Annually, the Fires Center of Excellence plans to carry a conference for member of the counter-UAS community to handle the growing challenges that unmanned systems pose to the us and its allies.
The first such conference was held a year ago in December. At that gathering, the heart introduced its operational concept to counter UAS, discussed the threat, implications to doctrine, organization, training, material development, leadership, facilities, personnel in addition to the results to the Joint Service community and any other Army centers of excellence.
Related Topic Tags