Army to host ‘recurring’ competitions for counter-drone tech

AUSA 2025 — Rapid changes in drone warfare require defenses that can evolve just as quickly, according to US Army officials who said the service plans to run competitions “at least” every two years to help field cutting-edge defenses against smaller drones for Army units. 

“We need to ensure that we continuously outpace the threat,” Col. Guy Yelverton, the project lead for the Army’s counter-drone product office, said during a panel discussion here at the annual AUSA conference Monday. “So we will have these competitions at least at an every two-year cycle, to make sure that we know and understand the capabilities out there from our industry partners, and that we continue to provide our warfighters the best capability so that we outpace that threat that’s evolving.” 

Yelverton said the Army has five different lines of effort to field defenses against drones, and that competitions are aimed at furthering two key ones: ensuring every soldier has kit they could carry on them, and unit common equipment like a sensing array that could be mounted on a Humvee.

The contests would further hone skills for two other lines of effort, which are focused on protection for fixed sites and counter-drone air defense batteries, according to a slideshow accompanying the panel. (The efforts by Yelverton and his colleagues focus on the threat of smaller drones, since officials say larger Group 4 and 5 unmanned systems typically require traditional air defense systems like Patriot batteries or fighter jets.)

The Army is currently wrapping up competitions focused on a new fire control system and is evaluating counter-drone equipment that could be commonly carried by soldiers, Yelverton said, which follow an award last year to AV subsidiary BlueHalo for a next-generation drone-killing missile. The colonel then previewed a number of competitions coming up for fiscal 2026, which will solicit industry for unit common equipment, sensors and electronic warfare.

“We have about 12 vendors out there showing us their kit,” Yelverton said of the ongoing competition for soldier common equipment. “And if they’re all good, we’ll select all 12, because we need a lot of capability in the counter UAS [unmanned aerial systems] environment.”

Maj. Gen. David Stewart, the Army’s director of long-range fires and integrated air and missile defense, said that Group 3 drones occupy a vexing middle ground for soldiers due to their speed, maneuverability and size. Stewart said Monday that swarms consisting of Groups 1 and 2 drones “almost equal to that” of a Group 3 attack. According to Col. Marc Pelini, high-power microwave weapons are likely the best tool to address the swarm problem.

“I think that that’s probably the most economical and combat-effective approach,” said Pelini, the military deputy for the Army’s fires future capability directorate. Pelini emphasized that any microwave systems will need to be capable of hitting targets “at least a kilometer or two” away. (The Army is also testing platforms like a Coyote interceptor that could fly to drone swarms and fry their electronics.)

Still, officials stressed that layers of defenses are required to defeat modern drone threats. 

“I don’t think there’s a silver bullet that can address the full range of the threats,” Pelini said. “So you need kind of a Swiss Army Knife of effectors to completely protect yourself from an engagement perspective.”