The Defense Department is opening a new storefront near the Pentagon with dozens of personnel dedicated to counter-unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technologies, the department’s chief acquisition leader said Jan. 14.
The new office in Crystal City, an area of Arlington, Virginia, will be led by an Army two-star general and has the goal of examining existing counter-UAS systems, eventually identifying a handful of solutions for the warfighter, said Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord.
“We are just finishing up on the policy that directs the [counter-UAS] activities,” she said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast event in Washington, D.C. “But overall, the idea is to take all of the efforts in terms of development and fielding and come up with three to five systems which are the best for counter-UAS, and make sure we leverage those across the entire DoD.”
The Army was recently named the executive agency for counter-UAS efforts within the Defense Department and will be working closely with Lord’s office on future efforts, she added. The office in Crystal City will be made up of about 60 personnel, she said.
The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation is currently performing tests on a number of currently fielded systems, and Lord said she expects a completed evaluation by April. “That coincides with when we want to make some decisions about down-selecting, if you will, to three to five systems that will be utilized.”
The Pentagon has approached the counter-UAS mission with “very federated efforts over the last couple of years,” Lord noted. The September 2019 drone attack on Saudi Aramco’s oil processing facilities showed the United States that adversaries are increasingly seeing unmanned systems, particularly small UAS, “as a popular weapon of choice.” The Houthi rebel movement in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack, but U.S. and Saudi officials have said Iran was behind the strike.
“We need to be agile and pivot to that challenge, so we are coming up with a number of ways to counter that,” Lord said, adding that in recent trips to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, she found that counter-UAS solutions were at the “top of everybody’s mind.”
While countering unmanned systems has been a priority for the Defense Department for some time now, “I will just say that our focus has increased. Funding is increasing, senior leadership involvement is increasing,” Lord said. It is one of the Pentagon’s top four technology priorities, along with hypersonics, microelectronics and 5G, she added.