From the AUVSI NE UAS and AAM Summit this morning, Brigadier General (R.) Peter L. Jones of the U.S. Army and Abigail Smith, Executive Director of the Office of UAS & Emerging Entrants Security on the FAA, delivered the keynote addresses, focused on Counter UAS Development and Deployment.
Counter UAS (CUAS) is technology designed to search out, discover, and mitigate unauthorized airspace activity. Using quite a lot of components, CUAS tools find other traffic within the airspace: each compliant – equipped with Distant ID or other signal – and noncompliant. The tools then seek to discover and classify the aircraft they find as people who belong within the airspace, or people who must be kept out. Finally, authorized entities may mitigate or disable unauthorized aircraft. CUAS is important technology for shielding critical infrastructure resembling prisons, airports, energy installations, or national security events. For the drone industry, CUAS offers a complementary solution that may address the fears of drone incursions to enable legitimate drone operations at scale.
The Military Perspective on Counter UAS
Brigadier General Peter Jones is currently the President of PLJ and Associates, providing consulting support and material expertise across the Department of Defense, industry, and research institutions. Today, Jones discussed the impact that drone technology is having within the hands of each military and civilians, and the necessity for robust and layered counter UAS systems.
“Every technology has a dark side,” said Jones. The Brigadier General has spent his long combat profession desirous about warfare, and the warmaking capabilities of drones are being demonstrated every day within the Ukraine conflict. Jones said that that is one signal that battlefields have modified, dramatically and permanently.
“How we thought we were going to fight now not exists,” said Jones, declaring that definitely in the course of the two world wars, the US enjoyed air supremacy. The early days of jet fighters, nonetheless, have evolved to recent technique of warfare.
“We used to say, if you happen to could be seen you possibly can be hit… now, if you happen to could be seen the adversary gets to come to a decision what they’re going to do. Spoof you? Delay you? Take your command and control away?”
Latest technique of warmaking like small drones highlight vulnerabilities. “We’re home-based,” Jones identified, meaning that the U.S. is reliant upon our ports, rail systems, airport, and roads to move troops, equipment, and supplies – along with the food and consumer goods that civilians depend on. “That makes us vulnerable through those networks.”
Drones not only highlight recent vulnerabilities, but change the essential features of a conflict. In Ukraine, for instance, drone use has expanded the depth of the battlefield frontline, from an area that will up to now have been a comparatively narrow area to an area of conflict 1000’s of kilometers wide.
That battlefield is transparent to all parties, as drones offer a constant surveillance of maneuver tactics. Jones said that at any given moment, either side within the Ukraine war are operating 40 to 50 drones. “”Counter UAS is important to determining learn how to get that surveillance off your back.”
Drones now shift the fight to logistics, targeting ammunition depots, power structure, and essential infrastructure. Drones reduce the targeting response time on the tactical level, and may reduce ammunition consumption. Drones are so necessary to the battle that Ukrainian officials have called it a “24/7 technology race”: to interchange the lack of an estimated 10,000 drones monthly, Ukrainian forces are 3D printing parts, and innovating using pressed cardboard and balsa wood as components.
Before everything, Jones emphasized the necessity to integrate counter drone technology into each defense and civilian systems. “All of us imagine in regulations. We’re following the principles on beyond visual line of sight,” said Jones. “But I can assure you that nefarious actors don’t think that way.”
Jones said that counter UAS technology requires a versatile framework of layered sensors and effectors for identification and mitigation. To detect compliant and non-compliant, authorized and unauthorized aircraft requires integrated sensors: energetic and passive radar, IO/EO sensors, acoustic technology, more.
Mitigation also requires a versatile approach to be useful in mutiple arenas. “Within the military, you possibly can go straight for the lethal,” said Jones, “You possibly can’t try this in civilian areas.” Defense stakeholders consider bandwidth, and seek to be network enabled, but not network dependent. Other effectors include drone on drone mitigation, or using a drone to catch a drone.
Finally, counter UAS should be platform agnostic, capable of be fixed or mobile depending upon the situation. “You’ve gotten to integrate systems upon systems to start to offer safety,” said Jones.
The FAA Perspective on Counter UAS Systems
Abigail Smith is a well-known and revered name within the drone industry. Prior to joining the usSecurity Office, she served because the Deputy Executive Director of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Office, liable for coordinating the mixing of small drones and advanced air mobility (AAM) operations into the NAS.
The FAA currently reports 860,000 registered drones “Those are only the registered ones,” said Smith, noting that the agency expects greater than 2.5 million drones within the airspace over the following few years.
“…this tremendous growth… inevitably brings security risk,” said Smith. Her agency has been tasked with advocating for consideration of CUAS and equities in rulemaking, policy and standards, and leading industry and intra-agency dialogue on the protection of the NAS and integration of CUAS technology.
Distant ID is a very important piece of the safety picture. The rule on Distant ID for drones was published in January 2021, requiring all business drones to be equipped with Distant ID broadcast capabilities. Distant ID functions very like the license plate on a automotive: drones will likely be identified while flying, but only authorized agencies will have the option to link the identification to an operator name. Along with being a foundational piece of a sturdy unmanned traffic management (UTM) framework, Distant ID will help to guard the airspace from drones whose operators either by chance enter restricted airspace or operate unsafely: allowing authorities to raised implement drone and airspace regulations.
The FAA is currently developing an API to offer authorized security partners, including law enforcement agencies, access to the database that will link drones within the air with operator information. On account of supply chain issues which have hampered the provision of Distant ID broadcast modules, enforcement of the rule has been delayed until March 16, 2024: but Smith warned that the agency is able to make sure that Distant ID is widely deployed. “We will likely be enforcing that rule,” Smith said. “I implore operators to comply.” ()
![](https://dronelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/1024px-Washington_Dulles_International_Airport_at_Dusk-e1555601657473-300x178.jpg)
Joe Ravi [CC BY-SA 3.0 ]
Testing Systems, Developing Rules
The FAA can also be moving ahead with evaluating CUAS systems and gathering essential data. The 2018 FAA Reauthorization bill mandated the testing and evaluation of counter UAS technology near airports. Systems are needed to guard each compliant aircraft – manned and unmanned – and airspace infrastructure from drone incursions. While there are answers available, they aren’t at all times an ideal fit for civilian applications, Smith identified:”These technologies were designed for war zones, not civil airspace.” The FAA will partner with 5 different airports to check CUAS systems, presenting data to Congress and offering their findings to the worldwide community.
The agency has also chartered an aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) focused on counter UAS solutions. The goal of the ARC is to develop rulemaking that may enable the expanded use of detection and mitigation technology while ensuring the protection of compliant aircraft of all sizes. The ARC has 58 members, representing stakeholder groups from aviation, public safety, CUAS, and society interest. 25 federal agencies and 14 allied global agencies participate as observers on the committee. The ARC plans to deliver their findings by the tip of this yr.
Smith emphasized that counter UAS is obligatory to guard the airspace – but additionally to enable legitimate airspace operations at scale. “Good drone operators exponentially outnumber the bad ones… this isn’t nearly airspace safety. It’s about all of us,” said Smith.
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