HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – In May 2018, the Army plans to field a laser to knock small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) out of the sky.
The laser will augment other capabilities already fielding as part of the Counter-UAS Mobile Integration Capability (CMIC), according to Maj. Gen. Terry McKenrick, chief of the Army’s Joint Modernization Command.
The laser will be part of the CMIC “defeat mechanism,” McKenrick said. The Army does not yet know on what vehicle it will mount the laser, but a Maneuver Fires Integration Experiment coming up in a couple weeks will inform that decision. A similar system has been mounted on a Stryker in a scout platoon, but in testing soldiers armed with lasers said it should be deployed on other vehicles.
“That’s a system we don’t currently have fielded but we are advancing … that will make the overall counter-UAS system more capable,” he said. “This one particularly will be able to target one of these low, slow small UAS systems and be able to take it out.”
CMIC has already proven effective at neutralizing the threat presented by “low, slow small UAS” in previous Army exercises, McKenrick said.
At the latest Joint Warfighter Assessment, the Army evaluated CMIC’s ability to detect, track and disrupt small unmanned aerial systems. The CMIC focuses on defeating commercially available UAS that have been used by the Russians in Ukraine and by non-state adversaries including Islamic State militants.
The Army is closely scrutinizing Russian capabilities in Ukraine to identify and address its own capability gaps. The Russian New-Generation Warfare Study has shown how the Russians are employing small UAS in that fight.
“Using that as a model we’ve been able to adapt and develop this CMIC capability that is able to focus on identifying these low, slow small threat UAS that are now becoming more prolific in the operational environment,” McKenrick said at the AUSA’ Global Force Symposium this week.
CMIC has proven effective at defeating small unmanned aircraft in Army exercises and is now being fielded to deployed units that have filed operational needs statements requesting the technology, he said.
“It is an evolving process based on the threat,” he said. “It’s one of those where you are never at an end state. You are constantly evolving because the enemy, the threat is constantly evolving.”
CMIC can identify whether a UAS is friend or foe and then trace its remote signal to the ground-based operator, McKenrick said. The Army then can interrupt the signal, knock down or destroy the aircraft and then target the enemy operator with “other kinetic means,” he said.
“It’s a progressive system,” McKenrick said. “The real key is to find and take out the ground control station, because that’s probably where they have more of these systems. If you just take out the aircraft, they’re just going to launch another one.”