July 6, 2018 | International, Aerospace
Army units at and below the battalion level are unprepared to defeat aerial drones and current plans can't keep up with rapidly evolving technology, according to a recent study.
Back in 2016, the Army Research Office asked an outside organization, The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, to evaluate their counter drone capabilities for battalion and below operations.
The report they published earlier this year notes some significant gaps and threats to soldiers with this technology.
“Contrary to the past, when U.S. warfighters may have found (improvised explosive devices), now the IEDs will find our warfighters,” according to the report.
While the Army and Marine Corps, which also included representatives in the study, are throwing resources at the small drone problem, they are not keeping pace with the threat.
“Army time frames are significantly out of sync with the rapidly advancing performance capabilities of individual (small Unmanned Aerial Systems) and teams of sUASs,” according to the report.
The report noted that most of the service's counter drone asset work was focused on heavy vehicle platforms or on fixed sites, which leaves smaller units most likely to first encounter the threat more exposed.
“Significant quantities of man-portable” counter-drone systems have been fielded, Army spokesman Maj. Chris Ophardt told Army Times in an email. The Army will continue to pursue those capabilities based on emerging threats.
Based on his response, which did not include details of capabilities, the Army is pursuing other ways to defeat drones. A large portion of the study was classified, due to operational security concerns.
“Future Army C-UAS systems will encompass a variety of potential platforms to include fixed, mobile, and Soldier-portable capabilities,” Ophardt wrote.
But beyond the types of systems employed, what they're targeting or attacking also came under fire in the report.
The Army and other branches have invested significantly in counter-drone technology, “often focusing on detecting radio frequency transmissions and GPS signals of individual sUASs. However, today's consumer and customized sUASs can increasingly operate without radio frequency (command and control) links.”
Drones now available can use automated target recognition, tracking, obstacle avoidance and other software-enabled activities instead of traditional RF and GPS.
Ophardt did not divulge specifics of how the Army is addressing this, but responded that the service's counter drone capabilities, “include multiple methods in order to detect, identify and defeat enemy UAS.”
A new school began last month at Fort Benning, Georgia to give basic trainees familiarity with small drones. The drone school gives infantry and scouts the ability to fill out a seven-line report when they encounter a drone then relay that info to their headquarters.
The students use both fixed-wing and helicopter small drones. They also learn defensive tactics such as how to use dispersal and hiding tactics to minimize casualties from drone-coordinated fires, according to an Army release.
Those introductory tactics can help even brand-new soldiers start thinking about how to deal with drone threats.
But, at the same time, the low-level tactics currently used for counter drone work have tried to use “kinetic effects,” basically shooting down the drone by interfering with its signals or overheating its circuits.
The report noted that method isn't practical on a wide scale for large numbers of troops, especially dismounted units.
That path only adds more gear from the equipment to the batteries, to an already overloaded soldier, not to mention the “cognitive load” of training and using another piece of equipment, according to the report.
Ophardt responded that the Army's counter-drone strategy included “multiple methods” to detect, identify and defeat” enemy drones.
The major provided a similar response when asked about Army efforts at counter-drone tactics, capabilities against swarming drones and collaboratively acting drone groups, which the report remarks will be more prevalent and sophisticated as soon as 2025.
Report authors urge Army leaders to adjust their timelines for matching tech development, which are woefully inadequate for the exponential changes in software, hardware and drone capabilities.
Current Army time frames consider near-term planning to run from now until 2025; mid-term planning in the 2026 to 2035 window and far-term at the 2036 to 2050.
Those efforts mirror vehicle acquisition strategy timelines, not the drone arena.
The report pushes for a near-term planning of one to two years, mid-term at the three- to five-year level and far term in drone tech at the six- to eight-year range.
The advances are happening so quickly, authors point out, that it is “impossible to predict performance capabilities beyond eight years.”
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August 10, 2020 | International, Land
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army grappled with the challenge of incorporating heavy robotic combat vehicles into its formations during a monthlong experiment at Fort Carson, Colorado, coming away with a clearer path to bringing robots into the fold. Still, the service is years away from ground robots seamlessly fitting in with units. The Army has been evaluating the performance and possible utility of heavy RCVs for more than a year through the use of robotic versions of M113 armored personnel carriers, but the experiment at Camp Red Devil on Fort Carson is the most complex to date. “We're taking a lot of technology, we're experimenting and this experiment was 100 percent successful,” Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, who is in charge of the Army's combat vehicle modernization efforts, told reporters in an Aug. 6 briefing. “The whole purpose was to learn where the technology is now and how we think we want to fight with it in the future.” Coffman said that doesn't mean all of the technology was successful or that everything performed perfectly. “Some [technology] knocked our socks off, and some we've got a little bit of work to do. But that is why we do these things, so we can do it at small scales, so we can learn, save money and then make decisions of how we want to fight in the future.” Going the distance In part, the Army is tackling a physics problem as well as a technology challenge involving the distance between the robot and the controller, Coffman said. But the service has found companies that can create waveforms to get the required megabytes per second to extend the range in the most challenging environments like dense forested areas, he added. During the experimentation, Coffman said, the Army tested the waveforms. “We went after them with [electronic warfare], we saw they were self-correcting, so that if they're on one band, they can switch to another,” he said, “so we have a really good idea of what is in the realm of the possible today.” The service was also able to almost double the range between controller and robot using the waveforms available, he explained. “If you could extend the battlefield up to 2 kilometers with a robot, then that means that you can make decisions before your enemy came, and it gives you that trade space of decisions faster and more effectively against the enemy.” The Army was also very pleased with the interface for the crew. The soldiers were able to located themselves and the robots, communicate among themselves, and see the graphics that “just absolutely blows us away,” Coffman said. The software between the robot and control vehicle — a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle — “while not perfect, performed better than we thought it would,” Coffman said. The software also allowed the robot move in front of the control vehicle by roughly 80-1,000 meters as well as identify hotspots and enemy locations. “I didn't know how that was going to work,” Coffman said. “There were some challenges that we had, like getting exact granularity at distance, but the ability that we could identify hotspots and enemy positions I thought was absolutely exceptional.” As a side experiment, the Army also tested a robotic version of the Stryker Dragoon infantry combat vehicle, which is equipped with a 30mm cannon and uses the same software and hardware in control vehicles, Coffman noted. The experiment included live fire. In the heavy RCV surrogates, the target recognition worked while stationary, but part of the challenge the Army is tackling is how to do that on the move while passing information to a gunner, he added. Work on stabilizing the system for multiple terrains also needs performed, but that was indicative of using clunky, old M113s and turning them into robots rather than having a purpose-built vehicle like the RCV Medium and RCV Light. The Army awarded contracts to a Textron and Howe & Howe team to build the RCV-M, and a QinetiQ North America and Pratt & Miller team to build the light version late last year and early this year. Those are being built now. Training on the system also proved to be much easier than anticipated. Coffman said he asked how long the operators need to train, and was surprised to hear they need roughly 30 minutes to learn. “I thought it was going to take them days, but our soldiers are so amazing and they grew up in this environment of gaming.” What's the Army's next step? Now that the first major experiment is done, the Army plans to build up to a company-level operation in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 at Fort Hood, Texas. The experiment will also include four medium RCV prototypes and four light RCVs. While the experimentation at Fort Carson was focused on cavalry operations where the robots served more in a scout mission and proved they could be effective in a reconnaissance and security role, the experiment in FY22 will move the robots into more of an “attack and defend” role, according to Coffman. A new radio will be added to increase range as well as a tethered UAV and more leap-ahead target recognition capability that uses algorithms trained on synthetic data that is “truly cutting-edge,” Coffman said. After each of these experiments, he added, the Army reaches a decision point where it decides how to proceed, whether that is more experimentation or a fielding decision. “We have enough information tactically and technically that I believe we can move forward to the second experiment,” he noted. Following the second experiment, the Army will reach a decision point in FY23 on whether to move the effort into an official program of record. Once that is decided, an acquisition strategy would be identified if the decision is to move forward, according to Coffman. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/08/07/heavy-robotic-combat-vehicles-put-to-test-in-the-colorado-mountains/