US Army awards AeroVironment a 500 million dollar counter-drone contract for layered defense against cheap attack drones
US bases and troops exposed to cheap attack drones are the focus of a new $500M US Army contract with AeroVironment $AVAV. It opens a three-year path to layered counter-drone defense: RF detection and jamming, the LOCUST X3 laser, and kinetic interceptors against FPV and one-way
The cheapest weapon on the modern battlefield is now shaping how the US Army spends. On July 1 the service awarded AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) a contract worth up to 500 million dollars for commercial counter-drone systems, giving it a three-year path to buy layered defenses against small uncrewed aircraft. The problem the contract addresses is the low-cost attack drone. First-person-view quadcopters and one-way attack UAVs, some costing only a few hundred dollars, can now reach forward bases, fixed sites and critical infrastructure. Defending against them with traditional air-defense missiles is not sustainable, because the interceptor often costs many times more than the drone it destroys. The award covers what the Army classifies as Group 1, 2 and 3 drones, from small FPV quadcopters to larger reconnaissance and one-way attack aircraft. The systems bundle several layers: radio-frequency detection and jamming to break the link between drone and operator, directed-energy weapons including the LOCUST X3 laser rated at 20 to 35 or more kilowatts, kinetic interceptors for targets that get through, and command-and-control software to protect troops, bases and infrastructure. The structure matters as much as the dollar figure. Rather than a single system, the Army is buying a mix of low-cost and high-end effects so it can match the response to the threat instead of spending expensive missiles on hardware that costs a fraction as much. Source: DefenseScoop