While the Pentagon continues to experiment with technologies that could disable or destroy swarms of small drones, the Air Force’s acquisition lead on the effort is concerned about a lack of funding needed to meet the threat—and his office’s ability to convert promising efforts into ...
Members of Congress want to know how the Air Force plans to defend remote or forward-deployed airfields as part of its Agile Combat Employment strategy. By February 1, the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee expects a report outlining the Secretary of ...
Three drones attacked a U.S. base in southeastern Syria on Jan. 20, the latest in a series of threats to the strategically positioned outpost, U.S. Central Command said. Two of the drones were shot down by the Coyote air defense system, according to a U.S. ...
U.S. Central Command is making progress tying together air, missile, and drone defenses—but there’s still more to be done to achieve “single-pane-of-glass” integration, officials say. Fully integrating sensors and defenses will demand further innovations, both in integrating new technologies and repurposing existing ones, said CENTCOM Deputy ...
China’s growing capability in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles, along with its lack of end-user restrictions, will require the U.S. Air Force to ramp up counteroffensive measures, panelists and attendees at the recent China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) conference told Air Force Magazine. “A ...
The Air Force Research Laboratory is looking for contractors to build a fieldable high-powered microwave counter-drone system to defend air bases, AFRL announced July 29. It will spend $20 million on the program, the prototype for which it wants in 2023. The program is called ...
Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar, recently adopted a new counter-drone system that lets its operators identify incoming threats and sever the connection between drone and operator. “The goal of the program is to build counter measures for Al-Udeid AB that would pose as a last line ...
The proliferation of small unmanned aerial systems, usually commercially available drones that can be outfitted to drop weapons, is the most “persistent and dangerous” threat to troops in the Middle East in decades. “These small- and medium-sized UAS proliferating across the [area of operations] present ...
The Pentagon could save a lot of money on personnel and increase force structure with expanded use of “remotely crewed” systems, but the diversity of size and application of such systems demands specialized thinking, rather than just lumping them together as “drones,” according to experts ...
The Air Force is in the market for upgrades to its counter-drone technologies, according to an Oct. 16 request for information posted on a federal contracting website. The service is in the early stages of deploying lasers, microwaves, and other weapons more advanced than a ...