US Army, MyDefence agree to C-UAS deal

MyDefence's Spectrum Warrior AI-assisted interface to enhance UAS detection, seen on an ATAK device as part of the Wingman portable system. (MyDefence)

The US Army has reached a deal with Danish counter-drone technology firm MyDefence to acquire over 400 counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UASs) for army units in US European Command (EUCOM) and other combatant commands across the globe.

The US Army acquired a total of 485 wearable C-UAS units from MyDefence as part of a USD26 million deal reached in June, said William Ostrowski, president of MyDefence North America. Roughly 15 C-UAS units from the 485 systems acquired from MyDefence have been recently deployed during joint exercises in EUCOM, he said during an interview with Janes on 24 June.

“The army bought this [system] and it seems like they are intent on delivering these to a TiC [Transformation in Contact] unit or multiple units for evaluation ... as part of their continuous evaluation methodology they have been going at for the last couple of years,” Ostrowski said, referring to the army units tied to the service's ongoing TiC technology experimentation initiative.

He declined to comment on which TiC units the systems would be deployed to. “I am sure the army's got a plan on where they are going to put those [systems] and when; we are just not privy to that information right now,” Ostrowski said.

There are more than nine Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) that will become TiC units as part of the service's next TiC iteration, dubbed TiC 2.0. In addition to the BCTs, the three Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTFs) that execute long-range fires and sensing will become testers.