The unmanned aircraft system (UAS) market is expected to grow to more than $60 billion by 2025, and with each passing year the potential for threats due to these often hard-to-detect craft is only going to increase. Successful military-focused counter-UAS (c-UAS) solutions may neutralize these threats today, but these threats continue to evolve. Software-defined radio (SDR) will continue to play a key role in c-UAS solutions for the foreseeable future.
Could the U.S. Military Beat Russia and China’s Drone Swarms?
Swarms of attack drones, groups of weaponized mini-explosive drones and low-altitude, inexpensive, commercially-built and readily available air-ground and sea unmanned systems are now fast being acquired by potential U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran, raising red flags and threat warnings throughout the Pentagon.
Swarms of attack drones, groups of weaponized mini-explosive drones and low-altitude, inexpensive, commercially-built and readily available air-ground and sea unmanned systems are now fast being acquired by potential U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran, raising red flags and threat warnings throughout the Pentagon.
There are several tools and tactics being examined.
There is little point in engineering large numbers of swarming, armed, high-tech drones to support fighter jets, ground troops, and Navy ships unless they are fully networked and upgradeable.
Such is the thinking when it comes to the Pentagon’s new U.S. Department of Defense Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Strategy (C-sUAS) which, among many things, calls upon a need for common technical standards such that new generations of weapons, sensors and software can be added as they emerge.
“As we upgrade current C-sUAS capabilities and develop future solutions that will be employed across all operating environments, our systems must share a common architecture and be both complementary and interoperable,” the report writes.