Pentagon developing homeland defence C-UAS sensors
A US Army soldier tests a C-UAS device at McGregor Range Complex, New Mexico. (US Army)
The growing threat of proliferated unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) against targets within the United States has prompted Pentagon leaders to begin development of a new variant of counter-UAS (C-UAS) sensor, specifically geared towards homeland defence.
The US military's current suite of C-UAS sensor platforms deployed for homeland defence “lack the sensitivity required to detect and track the low radar cross section [RCS] and flight profiles of modern small unmanned aircraft systems (sUASs)”, Pentagon officials said in a Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) notice issued in mid-February.
Aside from those operational gaps in current sensor capabilities, the cumbersome footprint of legacy C-UASs for homeland defence, combined with increasingly growing costs overall to maintain those systems, prompted Pentagon leaders to initiate the new development effort, DIU programme officials said in the notice, which is soliciting industry proposals for the new sensor variants.
Those standing issues, combined with the increased use of sUASs by US adversaries, are “creating critical vulnerabilities for forces in garrison, in transit, and at distributed sites”, programme officials wrote in the notice. In order to accelerate development of the new sensor system, programme officials plan to “leverage mature and emerging commercial sensing technologies to deliver scalable, survivable” C-UAS capabilities for homeland defence missions.
The development strategy for the new sensor system has been split into two separate lines of effort. One will focus on building and fielding new C-UAS sensor systems designed to “establish a persistent, high‑fidelity protective sensing layer over fixed installations within the United States”, the notice stated. The second line of effort will look to develop C-UAS sensors to “provide small units with resilient, mobile-sensing capabilities while stationary and on the move”, it added.
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