Lessons for CENTCOM from counter-drone experiments in the Arizona desert

YUMA PROVING GROUND, Ariz. — As American servicemembers sweated in the Arizona desert, stress testing various counter-drone technologies, some senior officials had their minds thousands of miles away — thinking about how lessons gleaned here could help protect troops under US Central Command in the Middle East.

“Operating capabilities day after day in extreme desert conditions provides invaluable data on system durability and operator usability that directly translates to contested environments like the CENTCOM AOR [area of responsibility],” Marine Col. Scott Humr, deputy director of science and technology for the Army-led Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) 401, told Breaking Defense last month shortly after the military concluded its most recent Falcon Peak exercise in Arizona desert.

He said the “realities of the desert” like intense heat, wind, dust and glare closely replicate the physical challenges faced by forces in CENTCOM in the Middle East. Handling such realities here in Yuma for Falcon Peak 26.2, put on by US Northern Command, allowed the team to “identify critical, highly practical sustainment needs that cannot be replicated in a laboratory.”

Related: Battling sand and wind, Pentagon evaluates counter-drone tech at southern border exercise

For instance, Humr said the task force had to pay close attention to how often solar panels powering the tech needed to be cleaned, as they would quickly become covered in dust. Soldiers had to make other “simple physical modifications” too, like getting new display shields so operators could read their screens in the unrelenting sunlight. 

That information, in turn, can enable industry to better outfit troops in commands like CENTCOM.

“Passing this direct feedback from our operators back to developers ensures that counter-UAS [unmanned aerial systems] are fully ruggedized and optimized before they are deployed to forward combat environments,” he said. 

Mike Wior, CEO of Allen Control Systems, the company that makes the counter-drone Bullfrog system, echoed Humr’s concerns over the wind. He told Breaking Defense on the sidelines of Falcon Peak that during the exercise his team had to adapt to the “gusts of wind that kind of come out of nowhere” and the crosswinds that affect the direction of the interceptors. 

“That has been kind of an eye opener,” he said. “We’ve already been out there shooting for quite a while, and so we’ve been getting used to it. But it’s really, really good, comparable stuff to CENTCOM.”

The sentiment was echoed by Joe Cornelius, who’s firm Perseus makes drone interceptors that the company says cost under $5,000 a hit.

“Some of the big takeaways we took from [the exercise] were like, we need to do more robust testing on different wind environments and things like that.” Cornelius told Breaking Defense. “The winds out here at Yuma are about twice what we’ve ever tested with down in Texas. So that was a pretty big thing that we learned.”

Regarding the lessons learned related to tech, Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, JIATF-401’s commanding general, told reporters on Sept. 24 that the task force plans to inform leaders from CENTCOM of its success with constructing a “layered defense” during the exercise — using different, overlapping defensive tech in a way that offers more than one chance to neutralize a threat. CENTCOM already uses layered defenses, but Ross said that beefing it up will be vital considering the ongoing risks Iranian Shaheed drones pose to US and allied bases in the region.

“We work in support of all the COCOMs, and so we and the services receive the requirements from them, and so we have provided support to [CENTCOM commander] Adm. [Brad] Cooper and CENTCOM,” Ross said. “I would say more than anything, [Falcon Peak] reinforced what we knew about the requirements for a counter-UAS ecosystem, meaning that we need a layered defense that consists of both active and passive sensing.”

He added that he’s seen how leaders in CENTCOM are “effectively” using the tools that are available, explaining that his task force’s role is to “try to give them some additional tools” so they can “layer them together in an effective manner to protect their critical assets.”

Though Ross didn’t specify what kind of tools could be offered to CENTCOM, during the exercise, the task force and NORTHCOM demoed three “lanes” of capabilities: sensing, kinetic interceptors (also known as drone-on-drone take downs) and ballistic take downs, which primarily consisted of small ammunition taking down the aircraft.

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) also played a role in finding relevant capabilities for CENTCOM during Falcon Peak. Angela Aspito, a director with DIU’s onramp hub in Arizona — which manages the continental US-based experimentation events for CENTCOM — told reporters DIU was successful in finding such capabilities, but she also did not specify on the types. But she said there are “gaps that we’re aware of that the warfighter needs to fill with technology.” 

“It’s pretty relevant right now to be out in Arizona, getting everything that’s happening with the war in Iran and Epic Fury. There’s a lot of relevant capability that needs to be transitioned into the Middle East, and so the opportunity to see that on the battlefield today is really real,” Aspito said.