US, UK gears up with Project Flytrap with anti-drone tech

video The US Army, alongside British and other NATO partners, is testing the latest counter-drone kit at a training area in Germany. Early feedback is promising, even if most of the hardware isn't American-made.

Project Flytrap, a counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) exercise led by the US and UK, is conducting trials of systems to detect, track, and jam unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) following the widespread use of cheap drones in the Russia–Ukraine war.

Every single soldier needs to be a counter UAS expert

The testing is using Wingman drone detection kit from Danish company MyDefence, which monitors the airwaves for incoming UAVs. This is mated with the Pitbull [PDF] jamming system, carried by troops on the ground, that promises to be able to jam a drone's control systems and cause the operator to lose control.

"Every single soldier needs to be a counter UAS expert," said First Lieutenant Jake Licht with the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, in a video meant to draw attention to the trials.

Wingman sends warning alerts that drones are in the area to operators via an earpiece. Upon detection, troops can activate Pitbull, a man-portable radio frequency jammer that disrupts control and video links out to roughly 1,000 m (0.6 miles).

Youtube Video

The troops are also equipped with Israeli-made Smartshooter optical sights that use predictive software to help soldiers target incoming drones. The company recently won a $13 million contract with the US Army to supply these bolt-on sights to standard military rifles that it claims can correct aiming and enable drones to be shot down on the fly.

"Each of these vendors, they come up with great ideas," Licht said in the video. "They're all super, super smart. And then when it comes to us, the warfighters, we have to incorporate a lot of different technology, a lot of different vendors all in one space. Usually for the first time."

There is some American kit in the mix. The troops also used EchoShield radar technology from a Washington State outfit as a radar system capable of spotting small drones from 1.5 km (0.9 miles) away, and 3 km (1.9 miles) for larger drones with a heavier payload. But it's vehicle-mounted, so troops need their own solution.

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The extended exercise will end in August, but it's a sign that NATO is gearing up for the next war, not the old one. When a multi-million-dollar tank can be taken out with an inexpensive drone, then soldiers on the ground need to have the kit to disable such attacks, just as infantry are used to protect armored forces.

The goal is "to either jam it or knock something out of the sky before we have to blow it up," Alex Miller, the US Army’s chief technology officer, told the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

Given the current situation in the Middle East, and Iran's fondness for drones, the technology could be crucial in the current war zone. ®