Soldiers with the 1st Cavalry Division have found ways to help armored vehicles pair sensors with drones to spot enemy drones before they strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Col. Nicholas Dvonch, division artillery commander, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Trenton Huntsinger spoke with Army Times recently about the progress of the division\u2019s experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soldiers have taken passive sensors \u2014 the size of a baseball home plate \u2014 and mounted them on armored vehicles to detect enemy drones and pass that information back to their air defense element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s created an air picture 3.5 kilometers in front of them, giving the vehicles about a 45-second warning for their airspace, Huntsinger said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI see every implement you\u2019re going to fly at me,\u201d Huntsinger said. \u201cCreating a 45-second buffer, directed energy, microwave, lead in the air \u2014 whatever we need to shoot those down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move is restoring fires and maneuver on the offense, Dvonch said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now they\u2019re figuring out the data transport problem, bringing the information into a command-and-control system not only to detect but to also engage any objects in the airspace as they move, Dvonch said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you can see all enemy air tracks at the same time to create a common air picture, adjacent units can see what\u2019s happening to your left and right,\u201d Dvonch said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next steps will include linking kinetic and nonkinetic systems to the loop to strike those enemy drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soldiers will test radio frequency detection to drive systems on the M1 Abrams to turn on other systems, activating sensors for 15 seconds at a time. But it will be autonomous, with no human needing to touch the system, according to Huntsinger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce this is successful, we\u2019ll do the same thing with a camera,\u201d Huntsinger said. \u201cAn infrared camera on the move to lock on. If I can do that, then I can get a kinetic weapon system to lock on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal is to engage any threat up to one kilometer away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a tank crew and we\u2019ve done our job, then you have a method to detect and defend against group I drones,\u201d Dvonch said, referring to the military\u2019s grouping of the smallest drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1st Cavalry Division soldiers are taking passive sensors and mounting them on armored vehicles to detect enemy drones and relay that info to air defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":88328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":27,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[78,160,29,36,27],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3481],"class_list":["post-45668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ausa-digital-show-dailies","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-newsletters","category-unmanned"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"FHYHR5PSVVELRJW76RO6K5AJFM","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2025\/10\/15\/these-soldiers-are-finding-ways-to-see-enemy-drones-before-they-strike\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n