US forces are beefing up counter-drone technologies at the southern border, detecting more drug cartel drones as a layered defense against uncrewed aerial systems takes shape.
Ongoing testing of different sensors and systems have given the Pentagon a better sense of how cartels are using drones. It also helps pave the way for developing a larger, layered network of defenses against uncrewed systems, as US officials have said that no single type of technology will defeat all drones.
Late last month, US Northern Command completed its fourth iteration of Falcon Peak, an exercise in Arizona to test new counter-drone systems, attended by defense vendors, the Joint Task Force-Southern Border, the US Department of Homeland Security, and the US Army-led Joint Interagency Task Force-401. The task forces and agencies are all involved in larger US efforts to establish more robust efforts to detect, disable, and destroy UAS threatening the US.
After Falcon Peak, US military officials said they’ve seen a “very noticeable” rise in the number of detections of drug cartel drones over recent months. “It’s an increasing trend,” US Air Force Brig. Gen. Brian Filler, deputy commanding general for operations with JTF-SB, told reporters on a call that Business Insider received a transcript of.
The drones are largely operating in an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance role for drug trafficking.
Officials said that over the past month, there had been 378 detections of cartel drones. “We are seeing largely commercial off-the-shelf available drones. Those drones almost always have a payload of a surveillance device, the camera,” Filler said.
While detections have been growing, officials said the increase was also attributable to more counter-drone systems being deployed. “We’re able to see more than we had previously as well,” Brig. Gen. Jason Rueschhoff, NORTHCOM operations director, said, adding that the increased detections don’t necessarily equate to more drones being used by cartels.
On the US side, there are a host of systems available for locating and tracking drones. “We have high electro-optic cameras that can see the drones in flight, and that’s how we do some of the positive ID on them and get a sense of what’s flying. Very often, we see drone launches, and then we see movement across the border. We have sensors that help us with that. We have cameras that help us with that,” Filler added.
US forces have used the border to test counter-drone systems, Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of NORTHCOM, said earlier this year. “If you’re willing to bring it down to the southern border, we’ll put it to use. We’ll tell you if it works,” Guillot said, describing the US southern border as “a literal and a figurative sandbox” for testing counter-drone systems.
That effort includes weapons for destroying drones. In late August, the JTF-SB said it had successfully used a laser weapon to take out three cartel drones. The laser weapon was identified as the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser. Lasers have emerged as a potentially more sustainable and feasible option for destroying small drones than traditional interceptors, although they also present their own power-generation challenges.
In these tests, as well as other engagements with drones, including lessons from global conflicts like the US war with Iran and Russia’s war with Ukraine has increasingly recognized the need for a variety of counter-drone systems because no single technology will be a silver bullet for all threats.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post US forces are using more sensors and shooters to detect more drug cartel drones at the southern border appeared first on Business Insider.
