Army’s unmanned systems summit is helping the service field drones to units faster

The Army’s eighth unmanned aerial systems summit is providing a path to more quickly equip units with drones, according to officials.

The event, hosted at Fort Rucker, Alabama, is taking guidance from multiple levels of government to rapidly supply UAS — to include lethal systems — at every echelon from squad to corps.

Service leaders are looking to “take the guidance from the Army Transformation Initiative that was published in April, the White House executive order on unleashing American drone dominance that was published in June, and the secretary of defense guidance on unleashing U.S. military drone dominance that was published in July … and rapidly turn it into action as part of our transformation for the Army to employ unmanned aircraft systems,” Col. Nicholas Ryan, director for Army capability manager for unmanned aircraft systems and launched effects, told reporters during a teleconference Tuesday.

More than 275 vendors are able to bring their systems to Fort Rucker along with soldiers for the first time, and test them on a live range. Troops provide direct feedback on what they need based on their regions and missions.

For the first time at Fort Rucker, the summit is providing a lethal live-fire demonstration venue where vendors can showcase their ordnance.

The summit will “allow users from the operational force that need these systems, need the UAS, need the payloads, need the technology, allow them faster access to acquire it, to purchase it, and to integrate it into their formations. Because UAS technology changes so fast, we need to do things faster to get systems out there, get technology out there, let units see it, find it and purchase it, and then integrate it into their formation,” Ryan said. “We are taking UAS with lethal systems and employing them in a range environment before the audience to see with soldiers operating and flying them using their tactics they would use, so we can also demonstrate and give industry an opportunity [to show] I have these UAS systems, but I also have this lethal capability that I can put on that UAS system, which is very much in line with the secretary of defense guidance to make our UAS more lethal.”

The ultimate goal is being able to get these drones into the hands of units faster.

If a system or vendor is already on the Defense Department’s approved UAS list, called the Blue List, they can try to begin providing the technology to units. If not, but a unit liked one of the capabilities that an unapproved vendor or capability demonstrated, then the Army and other DOD agencies can begin working to get it approved, validated and sent to units.

That process is intended to go hand-in-hand with a marketplace that the Army’s program executive office for aviation aims to build this fall to better match drones with units based on their requirements.

“This kind of experimentation is an opportunity for industry, whether they’re on the Blue List or not, to bring their stuff and show it off. And if it generates enough interest, then we can rapidly get it added onto those lists for units to get it as quickly as possible,” Ryan said.

The experimentation also aims to speed up the requirements process that is typically at the front end of any acquisition effort. Tip to tail, it can take five to 10 years to field a system — from concept, to requirement, to source selection to getting the capability out to units.

Demonstrating platforms that might not necessarily be fully baked, but are conceptually not far off, allows the requirements writers to speed up their process and potentially get the ball rolling faster, providing quicker purchasing of a more mature commercial system down the road, officials said.

Events like this summit also offer risk reduction because forces can see the technologies used in an operationally relevant environment. That way, they know once they get an emerging capability, it can be safely proliferated across the force.

Systems involved in the summit can be filtered into existing programs of record as well as emerging needs for units.

Experimentation is helping the Army better understand a baseline level of standardization to allow units to customize to enable fit-for-purpose use based on their unique missions.

“We also have that iterative strategy, because technology changes so fast, is upgrading and updating and modifying that technology as often as we can. Our standard is within less than a year, even quicker than that, in some cases,” Ryan said. “What we’re doing, it totally aligns with how our future of UAS and launched effects underneath MOSA, Modular Open Systems Approach, is to be able to take different capabilities to work with any UAS … that allows us to take any munition and any lethal control system and put it on any UAS we have, whether it’s an old one or a new one, and put the two together.”

Ryan equated the approach to Lego blocks where if a new munition or payload is developed, the Army won’t have to go back to get a new drone that can carry it. Instead, the systems are meant to be modular enough to be able to interchange new sensors or payloads without having to build an entirely new platform.