Marine Corps Developing Low Cost Robot Swarms to Counter Enemy Drones: As the technology for unmanned systems proliferates, one of the biggest challenges facing the military today is countering small, inexpensive drones used by the enemy in unexpected ways, said a Marine Corps official.
“Growth in [unmanned system] capabilities, coupled with their affordability and accessibility, make it increasingly more difficult to identify how our potential adversaries will employ these systems,” said Jeff Tomczak, director of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s science and technology division. “Based upon our success in using unmanned systems, we know that the enemy is adapting, and to a larger degree, openly purchasing similar technology to use on tomorrow’s battlefield.”
For these reasons, the service is aggressively pursuing capabilities to counter unmanned systems that will be ready when they are needed the most, he said.
There are several government agencies and military branches examining this problem, said Capt. Adam Thomas, the aviation combat element branch head for the S&T division of the warfighting lab.
These threats exist today, he added. “These aren’t future threats we’re talking about. This is stuff that is out there that we are running up against.”
