The Ban Military Drones Spying on Civilians Act, introduced by Democrat Rep. Jimmy Gomez on Friday, was referred to the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees for review. Text of the legislation was viewed by DefenseScoop this week, but hasn’t been published widely online.

“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2026 or any fiscal year thereafter for the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, or any other executive agency may be used to operate a covered unmanned aircraft vehicle in the United States to conduct surveillance of United States persons engaged in protests or civil disobedience,” the bill states.

In this context, the legislation defines “covered UAVs” as the MQ–9 Reaper and all variants, as well as any unmanned aircraft that uses an airframe initially developed for use by U.S. armed forces; is a medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft or a high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft; or can fly at an altitude of 10,000 feet or higher.

If passed, the bill would also require the president to produce annual reports to Congress detailing every instance in which a covered drone is deployed by the government for novel purposes or for operations not authorized by Congress — “including with respect to a use by one executive agency for an authorized purpose to assist another executive agency that is not authorized to carry out such purpose.”

The reports would need to include information about any weapons the drones were equipped with and the information they collect about people on the ground.

A senior staffer on Gomez’s team told DefenseScoop that the congressman introduced this legislation “in direct response to recent actions” of DHS, which deployed surveillance drones over Los Angeles in June to monitor protests related to immigration enforcement. Notably, it was also put forth at a time when DHS and DOD are working closely on border security operations that involve expanded drone deployments.

Privacy hawks have raised concerns about DHS’s drone surveillance operations to capture information about civilians in recent years, including in 2020 when UAVs were flown over more than a dozen U.S. cities where demonstrators protested police violence after the killing of George Floyd. But Gomez has warned that the increasing sophistication and advancements of military drone technology warrant more explicit limitations on their use to track public protests.

“[Rep. Gomez] believes the U.S. government should never use military-grade drones to spy on its own people, especially those exercising their constitutional right to protest,” the senior staffer on his team told DefenseScoop.

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The operation was the latest in a recent surge of attacks carried out by Africom since the Trump administration took office earlier this year.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell briefly mentioned the recent op during the Defense Department’s first on-camera press briefing under the new administration on Monday. Pointing to the initial assessment, he said that enemy combatants were killed and that no civilians were injured or fatally harmed.

On Wednesday, a source familiar with those airstrikes shared new information with DefenseScoop.

“The vast majority of [Africom’s] strikes are out in the open. This strike did not include structures,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

Somalia is located on the Horn of Africa. The nation’s extensive coastline borders the Gulf of Aden to the north and the Indian Ocean to the east. 

The militant organization al Shabaab, an al-Qaeda ally, frequently launches terrorist attacks against Somali civilians and officials. In recent years, the group has increasingly threatened the Somali government’s hold on its territory.

And tensions continue to escalate this week. On Tuesday, members of the group targeted the Somalian president’s motorcade with a bomb attack in Mogadishu.

Early into his new administration, President Donald Trump made a policy shift that eased restrictions on U.S. commanders in a way that enables them to authorize strikes and certain special operation raids beyond conventional battlefields — and essentially expanded the pool of people who can be targeted.

The new authorities have empowered commanders to take faster action against terrorist threats, the official who spoke to DefenseScoop said.

So-called “self-defense airstrikes” like the one on March 15 are conducted when an Africom partner or its own forces are under attack and request assistance, they noted.

They declined to identify or talk about any of the technical systems or unmanned aerial vehicles deployed in the March 15 operation. However, they noted that “99% of the time these are conducted with UAV.”

“Most engagements last under an hour, but that includes monitoring, assessing and with very few shots actually taken,” the official said. 

They confirmed that battle damage assessments are ongoing. Generally, those can go on for days, weeks or months depending on the location of the operations, they added.

The official also noted that the airstrike operations that Africom has conducted so far in 2025 potentially mark one of the largest — if not the most — numbers of strikes the command has done in a short period of time, “compared to the last four years” under the Biden administration.

Information published on Africom’s official website indicates an uptick.

For instance, between Feb. 1 and March 15, the command reported conducting at least eight airstrikes in its area of responsibility. Africom reported completing a total of 10 airstrikes for the entire year of 2024, six of which were conducted in the first part of that year through March 15, 2024.

“U.S. forces will continue to partner with Somali armed forces to take the fight to these terrorists and degrade their ability to plan and conduct attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces and civilians abroad,” Parnell told reporters Monday.

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Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, director of operations at the Joint Staff, supplied new details about those airstrikes and the broader operational vision at the Defense Department’s first on-camera press briefing under the new Trump administration. 

“The initial wave of strikes hit over 30 targets at multiple locations, degrading a variety of Houthi capabilities. These included terrorist training sites, unmanned aerial vehicle infrastructure, weapons manufacturing capabilities and weapon storage facilities. It also included a number of command-and-control centers, including a terrorist compound where we know several senior unmanned aerial vehicle experts were located,” Grynkewich said.

“On Sunday, strike operations continued against additional headquarters locations, weapon storage facilities, as well as detection capabilities that have been used to threaten maritime shipping in the past,” he noted. 

Officials emphasized that this operation will continue into the coming days and until President Donald Trump’s demands are met. They didn’t explicitly clarify all of the commander-in-chief’s expectations, but Parnell suggested that they’d begin with a pledge from the Houthis to stop all attacks against American ships. 

“We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective. With that said, and this is a very important point, this is also not an endless offensive. This is not about regime change in the Middle East — this is about putting American interests first,” Parnell said. 

A series of Houthi-led UAV and missile attacks against military and commercial ships intensified in and around the Red Sea under the Biden administration, partially as a response to America’s support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

According to Parnell, the Houthis have launched one-way attack drones and missiles at U.S. warships more than 170 times, and at commercial vessels around 145 times, since 2023.

In response to reporters’ questions, the official did not specify what provoked this new wave of strikes. However, Grynkewich said that the U.S. is able to take action against a “much broader set of targets” due to support from Trump.    

“The other key differences are the delegation of authorities from the president through [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] down to the operational commander. So, that allows us to achieve a tempo of operations where we can react to opportunities that we see on the battlefield in order to continue to put pressure on the Houthis,” Grynkewich noted.

The military is conducting battle damage assessments.

In terms of early estimates, Grynkewich suggested there were “dozens of military casualties so far” in this series of attacks — and despite the Houthis’ accusations, he said he’s seen no credible indications that any civilians were killed.

“There was an unmanned aerial vehicle facility that was struck with several key leaders. Those are key individuals who led their unmanned aerial vehicle enterprise and were some of the technical experts in there. So think of those types of individuals that we might be targeting as part of the command and control,” he said.

“We have destroyed command-and-control facilities, weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations. But again, this campaign is ongoing. It’s difficult to talk about all this stuff from the [Pentagon briefing room] podium, and we’re not going to say anything from the podium until we’re sure that we have it right,” Parnell added.

The officials declined to share whether the U.S. is looking at plans to send ground troops to Yemen or the surrounding areas at this time, or to go after targets associated with Iran.

“I certainly don’t want to get out in front of the commander-in-chief and the secretary as it pertains to clearance of strikes and who we’ll be targeting. But I think the president’s made very clear that all options are on the table,” Parnell told reporters.

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An official battle damage assessment is underway, but in a virtual press briefing on the operation, Sims emphasized that it “was not necessarily about casualties as much as it was about degrading capability” and technology the Iran-backed rebel group has been deploying to attack commercial ships in and around the Red Sea since the Israel-Hamas conflict started in October. 

The Houthis’ assaults against multinational vessels further intensified this week, and on Thursday, the U.S. and U.K. (with support from the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain and Australia) conducted what Sims said were strikes launched in self-defense based on an authority on hostile intent and a determination that all the systems would be used against the maritime or air forces of those involved. 

“Every target we struck last night was associated with a capability that has been employed in denying freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the [Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or BAM]. So, whether it was associated with radars that are providing surveillance to the Houthis to determine what ships to strike at, if it’s one-way attack [unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs] that are being used to strike at ships or at some sort of missile — ballistic, cruise or otherwise — that have been employed in an effort to strike those ships: All of those were capabilities that we sought to degrade with our strike last night,” Sims said.

In a call with media Thursday night, a senior administration official also said the joint strikes carried out by the U.S. and U.K. went after targets “focused specifically on Houthi missile, radar and UAV capabilities — the capabilities that are essential to the Houthis’ campaign against commercial shipping in international waters.”

On Jan. 9, “nearly 20 drones and multiple missiles were launched in multiple salvos directly against U.S. ships,” the administration official said, adding that the attack was ultimately thwarted by U.S. and U.K. naval forces as part of the multinational Operation Prosperity Guardian. 

During the call with reporters Friday, Sims made a point to note that the latest strikes were not conducted under the OPG initiative.  

“The missiles that are being employed in some cases by the Houthis are not the most technical, and so they have the ability to strike multiple different locations just based on what they see at the time. And again, this wasn’t a U.S. action — this was a multinational action” in response to the Houthis ongoing aggression in the crucial international shipping routes, Sims said.

After the briefing Friday, a senior defense official who spoke to DefenseScoop on the condition of anonymity noted that even though the Houthis’ systems and weapons aren’t the most technologically advanced or high-end, if left undefended, they have been disruptive enough to interrupt significant international commerce.

“And it has warranted the response that got executed last night, one with significant firepower of a multi-pronged strike mission,” the senior official told DefenseScoop.

In 2016 an American destroyer shot Tomahawk cruise missiles at multiple Houthi-run radar sites along Yemen’s Red Sea coast in response to a flare-up of attacks. 

The latest multinational strikes Thursday were not “retaliatory in a personal or a human impact kind of way — they were reducing the Houthis’ capability,” the senior defense official said. 

“It’s similar to what was done in 2016. It’s just more extensive now because their capabilities have increased,” they added.

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Public comments regarding the military’s expansion plans are due by Jan. 4, according to a notice of proposed rule-making recently published in the Federal Register.

Exact geographical coordinates are provided in that request, but the regulations that would be amended apply broadly to a defined zone in the Potomac waters near Dahlgren, Virginia where the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) — the Navy’s major surface warfare RDT&E center — conducts target practice and other activities that could pose risks.

This request to amend the danger zone emerged in one of the Dahlgren Division’s technical departments several years ago.  

“They have the need to conduct non-explosive testing in over-water environments and range time can be difficult to coordinate and schedule in between traditional explosive testing that occurs regularly. Expanding the middle danger zone increases our operational flexibility to allow both non-explosive and explosive work to occur simultaneously,” an official from NSWCDD’s corporate communications told DefenseScoop in an email.

With research and testing infrastructure developed over the last century and thousands of scientists and engineers on the team, NSWCDD facilitates the Navy’s efforts to proof-test its weapons, integrate new warfare capabilities into its operations, and develop chemical and biological defenses, next-generation lasers and other technologies.

The new rule-making notice is brief. But, in it, officials argue that “the expansion of the middle danger zone is necessary to protect public safety and satisfy the Navy’s requirements for weapons training.”

In response to questions regarding more specifics about the existing and planned activities in the danger zone that warrant this proposed expansion of coverage, the NSWCDD official referred DefenseScoop to Chapter 2 of the division’s environmental impact statement from 2013, “for more information on the types of testing conducted” by the division. 

Among multiple scenarios, that document mentions testing drones as platforms for directed-energy emitters, and high-energy lasers to destroy floating targets. 

“Please note that explosives operations are not expanding” under the proposed rule, the official added.

At this point, they said, the Navy’s team has not identified any “back-up plans or alternate sites,” in the case that the request is not approved.

The Army Corps of Engineers holds authority to issue, modify, or rescind danger zone regulations issued under the authority of the U.S. code.

“There is a 30-day public comment period for the proposed rule. USACE will fully consider any comments received on the proposed rule during that time,” a USACE-Baltimore District Corporate Communication Office public affairs specialist told DefenseScoop.

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“Democratization of technology is fundamentally changing the future battle spaces,” Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, vice commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said during the NDIA SO/LIC Symposium Friday. “We’re seeing right now that there are spaces in the world that we used to have full freedom and access to conduct our operations that we’re challenged on a daily basis, whether that be [unmanned aerial vehicles] challenging our forces, whether that be forces challenging the electromagnetic spectrum, whether that be adversaries are starting getting into biotechnology. That is an area that we have significant concerns.”

New, commercially available tech has limited SOCOM’s ability to operate with the freedom of action they’ve grown accustomed to in previous decades. Additionally, U.S. special operations forces are trying to better prepare themselves for competition and potential conflicts with advanced adversaries such as China.

In the past “we’ve benefited from that full freedom and access and a full support of the Department of Defense to be able to park literally hundreds of airborne [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] aircraft over targets of choice,” Bauernfeind said. “Not only are those resources not available, but I would offer to you that the contested environments are drying up and won’t allow us to do that … We cannot just simply say ‘it’s denied airspace or denied space’ and not enter into it.”

SOCOM is looking to modernize its capabilities. The command has shifted $8 billion over the last three budget cycles to key modernization areas like next-generation ISR and situational awareness, which is essentially a common operating picture.

This paradigm shift has forced the command to innovate in various ways. For example, now there are many more sources for ISR data.

“What’s also happened thanks to industry and the commercial sector is we’ve realized that there are so many more opportunities to get that needed information through other ISR means,” Bauernfeind said. “The fundamental focus of next-generation ISR is an acknowledgment that we’re actually swimming in a sea of data. But how can we take that sea of data and fuse it into information and get it to the leading tactical edge so those warfighters and those ground force commanders and those mission commanders can make those real time decisions they need to when they’re under threat from an adversary in the electromagnetic spectrum is being attacked?”

Next-gen ISR is expected to feed into that situational awareness capability for the force. To do this effectively, SOF will need to leverage automation and artificial intelligence.

Bauernfeind explained that some “SOF peculiar” needs for automation and AI include getting warfighters the information they need at the tactical edge, intelligence fusion for all the data coming in, and ensuring SOCOM has a full understanding of contracts so it can get the most bang for its buck.

To help get a better handle on its data, the command created a new chief data and AI officer and also finalized both a data strategy and implementation plan, Bauernfeind noted.

“It sounds a little bureaucratic, but I will tell you it’s keeping us on pace of how we can start to close out those key requirements that we have for those that have worked in the data world, the AI world. It’s incredibly complicated and you have to have that North Star and you have to have that plan to start knocking down targets as we go going forward,” he said.

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The long-endurance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform is characterized as a Group 2 UAS based on its weight and other characteristics. The platform is about 5 feet in length with a maximum payload weight of 11 pounds, according to manufacturer Insitu, which is owned by Boeing. It can operate at altitudes up to 19,500 feet and can loiter for more than 18 hours.

The ScanEagle can be equipped with a variety of sensors including electro-optical and infrared cameras, and feed information back to users using encrypted data links.

Notably, the platform is “runway independent” and is launched by catapult, providing users more flexibility than some of the larger surveillance drones that have been developed that require more infrastructure for deployment.

The Pentagon has provided Puma ISR drones — a smaller Group 1 UAS with much less endurance than the ScanEagle — to Ukraine as part of previous security assistance packages, as well as kamikaze drones such as the Switchblade and the newly developed Phoenix Ghost.

The new $775 million security assistance package approved by the White House includes 15 ScanEagles and a variety of other military systems, according to Pentagon officials.

“As President Biden has made clear, we will support Ukraine as they defend their democracy for as long as it takes. The United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities to meet Ukraine’s evolving battlefield requirements,” the Defense Department said in a press release.

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The Pentagon views manned-unmanned teaming between piloted planes and autonomous drones — also known as robotic wingmen — as a key component of future warfare, and the Navy is trying to put the technology through its paces.

A series of four flight tests recently conducted by the F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Office (PMA-265) at Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, Pt. Mugu, California, successfully demonstrated the ability of a Block III Super Hornet to command and control three drones, according to a Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) press release.

“During the flight tests, F/A-18 pilots entered commands into a third-party tablet instructing the UAVs to perform various maneuvers used in combat missions. The tablet was connected to the Block III’s adjunct processor, known as the Distributed Targeting Processor – Networked (DTP-N), which transmitted these commands to the UAVs. The UAVs successfully carried out all commands given by the pilots,” according to the release.

The press release did not identify what types of UAVs took part in the tests or what combat maneuvers they performed. NAVAIR did not immediately respond to a query from FedScoop.

In the release, Michael Yu, PMA-265 experimentation and demo lead, said “the comprehensive analysis of data captured during these events further informs development and refinement of technologies that could potentially be incorporated into Navy platforms.”

The demonstrations were supported by Air Test and Evaluation Squadrons (VX) 23 and 31 as well as Boeing and BAE Systems.

“The Navy conducts exercises of this nature with industry partners to evaluate current and future capabilities,” Yu said.

Boeing is the manufacturer of the Super Hornet. The Block III is the latest and most advanced variant, and its computing system is designed to support future manned-unmanned teaming.

Boeing also developed new software loads for the DTP-N to transmit the commands from a third-party vendor’s tablet, according to a Boeing press release. The software development, tablet connection to the fighter and all flight tests were completed in less than six months, according to Boeing.

“Future fighter pilots will be the quarterback of the skies, orchestrating commands and controlling UAVs from the integrated Block III touch-screen cockpit,” said Mark Sears, Boeing vice president and program manager of F/A-18 and EA-18G programs. “Block III Super Hornet is the bridge to the future and is a risk reducer for the Navy that is delivering on teaming, networking and interoperability now.”

BAE Systems did not immediately provide details to FedScoop about its role in the technology demonstration.

The Navy envisions robotic wingmen and other unmanned platforms reducing risks to aviators, extending the range of the fleet, enhancing combat capability, and serving as communication relay nodes, among other mission tasks.

Capt. Jason Denney, program manager for PMA-265, said manned-unmanned teaming has the potential to “transform tomorrow’s fleet into a more lethal, better-connected force.”

Better connecting the U.S. military’s forces is a key aim of the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept, which seeks to more effectively link the Defense Department’s various sensors, shooters and data networks.

“As part of a Joint All-Domain Command and Control network, teams of UAV conducting ISR missions led by the latest Super Hornets equipped with network-enabled data fusion and advanced capabilities would provide warfighters across the Joint Force with significant information advantage,” Scott Dickson, Boeing’s director for multi-domain integration, said in a press release.

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These types of systems, sometimes referred to as kamikaze drones or suicide drones, are different than traditional munitions because of their ability to loiter and search for targets to strike.

They are also different than the large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that gained fame during the post-9/11 wars such as the MQ-9 Reaper. The latter uses sensors onboard the aircraft to find targets and then launches missiles to attack them. By contrast, loitering munitions — often armed with warheads — are designed to go on one-way missions. When they find a target, they intentionally crash into it to destroy it. They can, however, potentially be recalled if no suitable targets are found.

Suicide drones have made headlines recently, as the Department of Defense sends hundreds of them to Ukraine for use against Russian invaders.

The tube-launched, remotely controlled Switchblade 300 system weighs just 5.5 pounds and can fit inside a soldier’s rucksack. It has a range of 10 kilometers, 15 minutes endurance, and a maximum speed of 100 mph, and is armed with a warhead, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.

The larger Switchblade 600 weighs 120 pounds, has a 40-plus kilometer range, 40-plus minutes endurance, and a maximum speed of 120 mph.

Meanwhile, officials across the DOD are pursuing new kamikaze drones and looking for innovative ways to employ them.

The Army

“We in acquisition, I think we want to take advantage of the amazing innovations in that area … And loitering munitions, something we already invest in, it’s something we could invest more in as the technology improves,” Douglas Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, told FedScoop in March during a virtual event hosted by Defense News.

That same month, the service evaluated Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’ Spike Firefly — a portable, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) miniature tactical loitering munition — at the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment 2022.

The Israeli contractor’s system is designed for “ground organic precision strike for close combat forces,” according to a Rafael press release. It is equipped with multiple sensors, a seeker, an encrypted data link and a lethal blast fragmentation warhead. As part of the Army assessment, operators fired a live inert munition at a mock enemy sniper position on an upper floor of a structure.

The Army has also released a sources-sought notice to industry for a Switchblade 600, indicating a desire for a system that gives the operator the ability to select predetermined targets using geolocation reference, visually select and identify targets of opportunity, loiter, abort, redirect, arm/disarm, and manually command warhead detonation — and has a modular architecture so it can be hosted by any future approved end-user device or Army common controller.

The service wants the weapon to have the ability to automatically lock on and track a stationary or moving target.

“Once a target is selected by the operator in the terminal phase of engagement, no further operator input shall be required,” the notice said.

The Marines

The Marine Corps is gung-ho about tactical UAVs. Such technologies offer advantages over more traditional fires such as mortars and artillery, which have a predictable ballistic trajectory and rely on prepositioned targeting, Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger told FedScoop earlier this month during remarks at the Modern Day Marine conference.

“The advantage of having all the way down to the squad level a weapon system that can fly, can shoot even maybe out of a mortar tube and loiter for 40-45 minutes, [or] out of a vehicle that can loiter for 90 minutes … is huge, because at the time that you launch that munition either A, you may not have a precise location for the target, or B, it may be moving,” Berger said. “It gives you so much flexibility to engage either targets that are concealed or targets that are moving because of the loiter time.”

The Corps has been experimenting with these types of drones as part of its “campaign of learning” that is informing Berger’s vision for the future known as Force Design 2030. The experimentation has included arming a robotic ship with loitering munitions to demonstrate the “potency” of that kind of capability, Berger said.

The Marines are making significant investments in these types of weapons and plan to buy them in large quantities, officials say.

Berger’s civilian boss, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, is also keen on these capabilities.

“Drone technology that’s evolved in the past 20 years, quite frankly, has been transformational on the battlefield. And it’s exactly the type of technology that we need to embrace in order to win conflicts in the future,” Del Toro told FedScoop at Modern Day Marine.

The Air Force

The Air Force has been secretly working on new suicide drones. In April, the Pentagon publicly revealed the existence of a Phoenix Ghost UAV that the U.S. is supplying to Ukraine. The project was overseen by the 645th Aeronautical Systems Group, also known as Big Safari, in collaboration with AEVEX Aerospace.

“The Air Force was working on this and, in discussions with the Ukrainians again about their requirements, we believed that this particular system would very nicely suit their needs,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters.

In addition to strike missions, the drones could also provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.

Like most UAVs, the system has optics so “it can also be used to give you a sight picture of what it’s seeing, of course, but its principal focus is attack,” Kirby said.

Although the Phoenix Ghost can perform similar missions as the Switchblade, it does have different capabilities, according to Kirby. He declined to say specifically how the new system is different or provide more details about its characteristics. Images of the weapon have not been publicly released.

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante told FedScoop during a press briefing that the Pentagon may use an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract mechanism that will make it easier to buy additional Phoenix Ghost systems.

Special Operations Forces

Special Operations Command is preparing to integrate loitering munitions into its combatant craft vessels for Navy SEALs.

“We’re entering that loitering munition space, which is a very exciting space for a lot of forces out there, including our international partners, and we’re looking for that maritime solution,” a SOCOM program officer said earlier this month at the SOFIC conference. The official was not allowed to be named in press reports under conference ground rules.

Another SOCOM program officer said: “Imagine a whole bunch of Navy SEALs about to attack a beachhead and they send a precision strike instrument off a maritime vessel, and it gets out there and they can see the enemy and kill the enemy before they hit that beachhead. That’s what we’re talking about for precision strike. And there’s a ground portion of it as well. And there’s even an aviation portion of precision strike that we’re all going after this time.”

‘Game-changing’

Caitlin Lee, head of the Mitchell Institute’s Center for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Autonomy Studies, said loitering munitions are “game-changing.”

Like large combat UAVs such as the Reaper, they can “stalk targets until they pop up and emerge” and “close kill chains in ways that you really couldn’t before,” she said

However, loitering munitions are generally smaller, more portable, and don’t require recovery systems like runways because they go on one-way missions.

“If you’re in a contested environment where you’re trying to maintain a low profile and a small footprint, it’s always going to be helpful to have smaller munitions, smaller UAVs,” she said.

Kamikaze drones like the Switchblade also cost as little as a few thousand dollars, whereas Reapers have a unit cost exceeding $50 million.

Because of their small size and expendability, loitering munitions could be deployed in large numbers to overwhelm an enemy, Lee noted.

However, many of them would have greater range limitations than larger UAVs, which could be a drawback when the U.S. military is operating across vast distances in regions such as the Indo-Pacific.

“There is a very serious range consideration in the Indo-Pacific, but I do think that with a little bit of creativity and innovation, some of those issues can be overcome,” Lee said.

One potential solution would be to air-launch them.

“Think about putting these loitering munitions on stealth aircraft that can get inside the threat [area] and then release them,” she said. “You can launch lots of these relatively small munitions from a large airframe, and so you have a potential cost imposition strategy where you can kind of overwhelm the target” and enemy air defenses.

The Navy could also employ its most advanced sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have loitering capability and a range of 900 nautical miles, although they come with a hefty price tag of more than $1 million apiece.

Going forward, a key consideration is the extent to which new kamikaze drones will be autonomous.

Many of today’s systems, such as the Switchblade, are remotely operated. But an autonomous tactical UAV could be preprogrammed before flight and “launched into a kill box where it basically can shoot any pre-approved target,” Lee said.

Some officials, like Berger, see autonomy as the wave of the future.

Autonomous drones would offer advantages, such as being able to operate better in contested environments where data links aren’t assured, Lee noted.

However, things could also go horribly wrong.

“If that autonomous system were to lock on a target that was the wrong target … that could be very problematic, and it can also even risk escalation. So, there’s a major downside to going fully autonomous with loitering munitions,” Lee said. “On the other hand, it does provide a way to rapidly prosecute targets in a communication degraded or denied environment.”

‘An interesting defense problem’

Loitering munitions aren’t just an offensive tool for the Pentagon — U.S. forces must also be able to protect themselves against kamikaze drones developed by China, Russia, or other adversaries.

The weapons occupy “an interesting little spot” in the threat spectrum, said Tom Karako, an air-and-missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. They’re not traditional cruise missiles — which are bigger and faster — or typical UAVs, which aren’t designed for suicide attacks.

“They can take the time and wait for the right moments [to strike]. And it’s an interesting defense problem, right, because … they’re small and they don’t go that fast. And sometimes it’s harder to kill something that’s going slow than it is to kill something that’s going a little faster. The low-and-slow problem … can be pretty challenging,” he said.

Low-altitude, low-speed threats are a thorny problem because they can be tough to identify — a key step in the kill chain before an adversary’s systems can be targeted, he noted.

“It’s not just about the hitting. It’s about the detection and the classification,” he explained. “It’s the command and control to know that, oh, that’s a drone and not a bird or something like that. It’s the ability to find it and to identify it as a threat.”

The Switchblade 300, for example, is touted by AeroVironment as having “very low” visual, thermal and acoustic signatures, and an operating altitude below 500 feet.

The counter-UAS challenge “is getting increasing attention within the air defense community,” Karako said. “I expect we’ll probably see a bit more of that discussion in the coming months when we get the Missile Defense Review, but also as the Army and the department begin to move out on some of the recommendations of the JCO,” he added, referring to the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aerial Systems Office.

“We do have some really good counter-UAS stuff, and there’s a demand signal for a ton more,” Karako said.

Directed energy weapons are seen as a promising tool for taking out enemy drones.

“At the end of the day, it’s always gonna be a mix of kinetic and non-kinetic [solutions]. But yeah, I think direct energy — not just lasers, but also high-powered microwaves and other forms of directed energy — I think are definitely gonna have an important role,” Karako said.

The JCO in April hosted a technology demonstration at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, of high-powered microwave systems. The office describes the technology as “a solution utilizing focused electromagnetic pulses from a fixed ground location at range with energy sufficient to destroy or defeat sUAS over the air.”

Additional demonstration events for technologies designed to counter small drones will be conducted semi-annually as the JCO coordinates with DOD partners to identify focus areas providing the most impact for transitioning solutions. The next demonstration is slated for September and will be informed by what’s happening in Ukraine, officials say. The event is still being planned and additional details are expected to be released this summer.

“For future tests, we’ll have to work with the threat community on additional … loitering or one-way attack scenarios,” James Childress, deputy division chief with the JCO’s acquisition and resources division, told FedScoop earlier this month during a media teleconference.

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The technology is a top priority for Air Force leaders as they look toward the future operating environment and fiscal constraints that will limit the number of manned planes that the service can buy for Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) and other programs.

“On its current trajectory, the tactical Air Force is not affordable. The crewed fighters we plan to acquire — F-35, F-15EX and the NGAD platform — are all too costly to fill out our needed force structure as legacy aircraft retire,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in March at the annual Air Warfare Symposium.

Speaking at the McAleese FY2023 Defense Programs Conference, also in March, Kendall said: “We’ve got to figure out a way to get the capacity, the quantity of capabilities that we need. … You need numbers, particularly if you’re in a situation where you can expect attrition and you need the ability to expand as necessary to deal with the threats. And the higher end, more expensive airplanes are not going to get you there.”

A solution to the problem, officials say, is drones and networked weapon systems.

The Air Force needs a crewed platform “teamed with a much less expensive autonomous uncrewed combat aircraft, employing a distributed tailorable mix of sensors, weapons and other mission equipment operating as a team or formation,” Kendall said.

A slim version of the service’s fiscal 2023 budget request, released March 28, included $113 million for research, development, test and evaluation of unmanned autonomous platforms and “adaptive collaborative platforms,” Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III told reporters at the Pentagon.

Peccia revealed that much of the money would specifically go toward the Air Force Research Lab’s Skyborg and Golden Horde projects.

These efforts have been designated special Vanguard programs, ranking them among the service’s top science and technology efforts aimed at delivering transformational capabilities to the U.S. military.

Skyborg

The Air Force’s Skyborg program isn’t focused on developing a new drone, but rather an “Autonomy Core System” and an architecture that will enable unmanned platforms to operate as robotic wingmen for manned planes.

The service wants Skyborg technology to be platform agnostic, providing the ability to install autonomy systems — which officials have described as AI-enabled “brains”— on a variety of drones.

“Skyborg has established an open approach to autonomy architecture, building a system that is portable across aircraft platforms, modular in its design to enable composition of multiple software applications, and adaptable to new capabilities and mission types,” according to an AFRL program description.

It continued: “Embedded within the teamed aircraft, complex algorithms and cutting-edge sensors enable the autonomy to make decisions based on established rules of engagement set by manned teammates.”

The lab is working with a number of contractors that are providing unmanned aerial vehicles and other technologies for testing.

Last year, the Air Force tested the Autonomy Core System onboard General Atomics’ MQ-20 Avenger drones during large-scale Orange Flag exercises near Edwards Air Force Base, California.

A key aim was to demonstrate their ability to autonomously fly, navigate, and coordinate safely in environments where manned planes were operating.

One such exercise in October demonstrated ACS capabilities that enabled two MQ-20s to fly autonomously while communicating with each other to ensure coordinated flight, according to AFRL.

More complex Skyborg tests and experiments are in the works.

With money allotted for fiscal 2023, the Air Force Research Lab plans to “continue to mature the foundational technologies in the Autonomy Core System (ACS) and execute operational experimentation to accelerate un-crewed systems development,” an AFRL spokesperson told FedScoop. “Future Skyborg experimentation events will explore direct teaming between crewed aircraft and multiple ACS-controlled un-crewed aircraft.”

Golden Horde

In addition to teaming manned and unmanned aircraft, the Air Force also wants to network its weapons. AFRL’s Golden Horde program is designed to help the service do just that by advancing “networked, collaborative and autonomous” (NCA) weapon capabilities through live and virtual testing.

Using algorithms and data links, munitions can operate and coordinate their actions without human control. That “ultimately enables weapons to react to changes in the environment as well as losses and degradations in their own systems. Although these systems can operate without direct human control, they only engage targets or specific target groups previously selected by a human operator as part of the mission planning process,” according to an AFRL program description.

In 2020, the program achieved the first flight demonstration of NCA capabilities using modified Air Force inventory weapons.

In May of last year, the program conducted the final flight tests of Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

During the event, two F-16 fighter jets simultaneously released their weapons — with four released from one aircraft and two weapons released from the other — and the weapons established communications with each other.

The exercise, which involved more weapons operating in coordination than in previous tests, demonstrated the ability to expand the systems’ radio network and scale up the number of “nodes,” according to an AFRL press release.

The test also involved sending an in-flight target update from a ground station directing the weapons to engage a different target than the one originally assigned.

“The Golden Horde team is blazing an exciting new path for air-delivered weapons,” said AFRL Commander Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle. “These technologies are completely changing the way we think about weapon capabilities, much like the laser-guided bomb did several decades ago. Golden Horde and technologies like this will enable the Department of the Air Force to overcome many of its current and future challenges, and we’re just beginning to unfold all the possibilities.”

Additionally, multiple weapons performed “synchronized time on target” attacks on a single target location, with pairs of weapons conducting such attacks on various target locations.

In September, the program transitioned to a new competitive phase known as Operation Protovision which includes a “Colosseum” where technologies can be showcased in virtual environments and industry teams can compete.

The Air Force is partnering with the Defense Innovation Unit and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab on the effort.

“This virtual environment, a digital engineering pipeline that encompasses software, hardware-in-the-loop and surrogate UAVs, aims to rapidly integrate, develop and test transformational networked, collaborative, and autonomous … weapon capabilities and air platform technologies for future warfighters,” according to an AFRL press release.

Winners of the competitions are slated to conduct live flight demonstrations later this year.

In 2023, the program aims to establish and demonstrate a Software Integration and Simulation Laboratory environment; demonstrate the hardware-in-the-loop environment within the Guided Weapons Evaluation Facility; and continue “weapon autonomy challenges” similar to the current Operation Protovision challenge events, an AFRL spokesperson told FedScoop.

Dogfighting with Robots

AFRL isn’t the only military lab working on robotic wingman technology that could be useful for the Air Force. A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative called Air Combat Evolution (ACE) is also making headway.

The program made headlines in 2020 during the agency’s AlphaDogfight Trials when artificial intelligence systems beat a human pilot in a series of one-on-one simulated combat engagements.

“We taught robots how to dogfight and then put an Air Force fighter pilot against them and he lost” 5-0, Kenneth Plaks, acting director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, said earlier this month at the annual Sea-Air-Space conference.

“That poor guy is going to be buying beer for the rest of his life in every fighter bar, you know, around the world. [But] he was a good sport about it,” Plaks joked.

The ACE program is shifting into Phase 2.

Work will include developing a more mature AI-driven approach to battle management “where a single pilot can act as a commander for large-scale, collaborative air warfare,” Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos, said in a press release.

In February, the company was awarded a $2.6 million contract for the effort.

If Phase 2 is successful, Phase 3 would include a “realistic, manned-flight environment involving complex human-machine collaboration,” according to the release.

One objective of the ACE program is to figure out how to set up manned-unmanned teaming so that human pilots will trust their robotic wingmen.

“I don’t see us removing humans completely from the loop anytime soon. But I can see a future where it’s human on the loop where you’re like, ‘Go take care of that threat and tell me when you’re done.’ And [the AI-enabled platform] just does it,” Plaks said.

Calling Plays

Next-Generation Air Dominance systems, which will include a sixth-generation fighter jet, will be designed to collaborate with uncrewed platforms to increase operational effectiveness, Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones told reporters at the Pentagon when the 2023 budget was rolled out.

The service plans to field large numbers of NGAD systems in the 2030s.

Kendall described a “notional” concept of having up to five uncrewed aircraft controlled by a single crewed NGAD platform or an F-35 joint strike fighter.

The idea is for the manned plane to be “essentially calling plays” for the combat drones like a football coach would call plays for their team.

“Introducing these uncrewed, autonomous and attritable aircraft to the tactical air dominance equation opens up a world of fascinating tactical opportunities,” Kendall said.

The Air Force is similarly assessing the potential to introduce lower-cost drones to complement the B-21 strategic bomber as part of a family of systems.

The goal is to have drones with “mission tailorable” levels of capability such as sensors, weapons and other mission payloads.

UAVs that are attritable — meaning their cost is low enough that the Pentagon wouldn’t care too much if they’re destroyed — could even be treated like robotic kamikazes, Kendall suggested, saying they could be “sacrificed if doing so conferred a major operational advantage — something we would never do with a crewed platform.”

The exact mix of crewed and uncrewed aircraft in future air combat teams, what types of payloads individual drones would carry, and what kinds of “plays” could be available for the human operator to select are now being analyzed and defined, he said.

“We’re gonna move forward in that direction and I’m fairly certain of the general path we’re gonna follow in the tactical regime. I’m not as sure of the path in the strategic regime, so we may move a little bit more slowly there. But I think it’s time to do that. I think it’s time to take whatever risk is associated with moving in that direction and trying to get to the first generation of that kind of capability. And then the [greater] numbers will follow,” Kendall said.

The service is looking for drones that are at least 50% less costly than the manned systems that are planned for both the NGAD and B-21 projects, according to Kendall.

The Air Force has not publicly released a cost estimate for NGAD.

The service previously set a cost target for the B-21 at $550 million per plane in fiscal 2010 dollars.

Future programs for manned-unmanned aircraft teaming will build on the work that’s been done for initiatives like Skyborg and ACE, Kendall noted.

“The intent is to cross the Valley of Death [in the acquisition process and make the transition between R&D and large-scale production] and move forward with the fielding of the first instantiation of a program of record that integrates crewed and uncrewed platforms operationally. The assessment we have made is that the technology programs I have discussed … have done enough to build confidence that this goal is achievable,” he said.

The China Challenge

A key driver behind the Air Force’s thrust toward autonomous drones and networked weapon systems is the U.S. military competition with China, which the Pentagon has identified as its “pacing threat.”

Beijing’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities are “very robust”, especially in eastern China and in the South China Sea, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, noted in March at a virtual event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

When the technology is ready, the majority of U.S. Air Force combat aircraft deployed to the Indo-Pacific theater in the future should be unmanned in order to “stress” Chinese air defenses, he said.

A potential solution to the problem is to have a fleet with a lot of relatively inexpensive, “attritable” unmanned systems that could be employed in combat on a large scale to create challenges for enemy air defense units.

“They use up their resources shooting things that you don’t care that they shoot down,” he said. “That would be a capacity that I’m very interested in as we go into the future of being able to amass targets for them to shoot at.”

While the Pentagon is averse to having its pilots killed, it wouldn’t be as big a deal to U.S. military planners if Chinese forces destroyed robotic platforms.

“If you lose an unmanned aircraft or an uninhabited aircraft, it’s a lot less meaningful to us than [losing] one that’s manned, of course,” Wilsbach said. “The choice that we have to make is how exquisite do we want these unmanned aircraft or uninhabited aircraft to be.”

Having a large fleet of drones that are as capable as high-end manned fighters such as the F-35A, which has a price tag of about $80 million per plane, or the NGAD systems that are under development, would likely be cost-prohibitive, he said

“What I would advocate for is make the manned aircraft exquisite and the uninhabited aircraft to be less exquisite, slightly more attritable, so that we can have more of them,” Wilsbach said. “We don’t want to make these things so expensive that we don’t want to get them shot.”

Future drones could play a variety of roles including acting as a sensor, jammer, “weapons truck,” or simply a decoy designed to draw enemy fire away from more important platforms, he noted.

The systems, enabled by autonomy and artificial intelligence, could coordinate their actions and operate in swarms.

“They should talk to one another and collaborate, not only amongst themselves, but also with the manned platform that they’re supporting,” Wilsbach said.

Manned-unmanned teaming is “the wave of the future,” according to Wilsbach.

He described a hypothetical scenario in which a few NGAD aircraft could be accompanied by 20 to 40 unmanned teammates.

“You give [the Chinese] a lot more targets to have to defend themselves against,” he said.

A key question that the Air Force will have to answer as it builds the future force is what portion of it should be unmanned.

Wilsbach said uncrewed platforms should outnumber crewed systems.

“I would contend that, you know, a 50/50 split wouldn’t be enough,” he said. “Especially inside of the anti-area access … region that China has put up, for every manned platform that you have I’d like to have multiple unmanned platforms that can do a variety of different missions.”

He continued: “The Air Force has not, you know, put down a percentage just yet on what that might look like … but just from what I know from air warfare and creating airpower effects for the joint and combined force, I think we’re going to need a lot more unmanned, many of them attritable, so that you can create the effects that you’re going to be looking for.”

At the McAleese conference, Kendall was asked what portion of the future fleet will be uncrewed.

“I don’t have a number for that but … it is reasonably clear to me that we are poised to go ahead and take a significant step forward in that area,” Kendall said. “I don’t know exactly how long a step that’s going to be, but I’m determined to make it.”

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