MILAN, Italy — Manufacturers of anti-drone weapons say they are increasingly miniaturizing and simplifying their solutions to meet rising demand for man-portable weapons, as recent conflicts have emphasized the importance of mobile capabilities.
Human-portable unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) have been around for some time, but with the growing threat of armed commercial drones in recent years, their adoption has accelerated. In a 2019 C-UAS database report prepared by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, 111 (21%) of 537 market products analyzed were portable solutions offered by over 29 different countries.
Warren Brown, vice president of marketing at Fortem Technologies, explains that the purpose and manner in which these systems are used today have also changed over the past decade. “In the past, security details and the protection of major events or key infrastructure have been focused on fixed solutions. Recent conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have shifted the focus to mobile systems that offer advanced radar detection capabilities, ease of deployment and portability, low total cost of ownership, and low cost-per-use. ” he said. There also seems to have been some shift in the belief that C-UAS measures need to be big to be good.
Previously, many militaries relied on more conventional jammer alternatives to counter enemy drones, either because they lacked the access or resources to acquire more appropriate and reliable systems. However, Brown notes that reverting to legacy devices isn’t always effective, as they weren’t necessarily designed to handle all of the and ever-evolving technology behind drone threats.
“Traditional jamming solutions have had a low success rate, forcing the use of costly and impractical systems such as larger missile weapons and even the use of fighter jets to mitigate the threat — often ineffective with small, maneuverable and difficult-to-detect UAVs,” he said. Such a scenario showed most recently when South Korea failed to shoot down its neighbors’ drones for several hours.
Manufacturers have acknowledged these issues, building on existing technologies but reinventing them to more effectively address the threats posed by drones, particularly smaller ones that may be harder to counter. In May 2022, Fortem Technology sent its man-portable DroneHunters to Ukraine and stated in a press release that it had taken the already existing C-UAS system and further miniaturized and simplified it for use as a rapid-deployment expeditionary weapon.
Matt McCrann, CEO of DroneShield, believes this sheds light on where these types of technologies are headed. “Absolutely, the goal is always to take a skill and make it more user-friendly, more effective, and less expensive. Smaller, better and cheaper,” he said.
DroneShield’s man-portable countermeasures, such as the DroneGuns, offer a number of advantages. A small and lightweight system, it is an easily transportable C-UAS capability that can be stowed in a vehicle, backpack, or body with a sling as the battlefield changes. Powered by replaceable batteries, DroneGuns are non-kinetic and use an electronic method of attack, meaning they can deliver unlimited “rounds,” which are more economical than kinetic systems and safer to use, with minimal training.
Similarly, other portable systems such as Fortem’s DroneHunters F700 offer countries an alternative at a lower cost per use than other more expensive systems on the market. In addition, Brown points out that each shot of her weapon costs only a few hundred dollars, considerably cheaper than high-energy systems like electromagnetic pulse (laser) weapons, which also require an extensive power source.
An additional advantage of the Fortem system for neutralizing drones is that the system can shoot them down in a controlled manner using a drogue parachute, allowing for reconnaissance and analysis of the enemy system and reducing collateral damage. This is in contrast to more conventional defensive techniques, which can cause the enemy UAV to explode or fall from the sky, often damaging civilians and infrastructure, or allowing it to return to its launch point without potential investigation into its mission or where it came from.
Brown claims that his solutions have a 92% success rate in Fortem’s 5,000+ documented surveys. DroneHunters were also deployed to protect multiple stadiums during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. For DroneShield, McCrann says their operational effectiveness has been high in both military and more traditional security environments, pointing to the recent instance where his DroneGun Tactical was used to neutralize 4 hovering drones during the Presidential Inauguration in Brazil.
Despite the benefits these systems offer, McCrann warns that shrinking a given capability generally involves one or more tradeoffs. “In electronic countermeasures, this (miniaturization) trade-off is usually seen in the system’s overall output power, where smaller may indicate its less effective range and the need to get closer,” he explains. However, in a drone-on-drone scenario, such as the DroneHunter or similar systems, this compromise of an electronic warfare payload might be acceptable since the engagement will be at close range anyway.
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is Europe correspondent for Defense News. It covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She lives in Milan, Italy.
Source: www.defensenews.com
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