The Army’s legacy short-range air defense command and control (C2) system has proven successful in integrating sensors and effectors to counter-small unmanned aircraft systems (C-sUAS) and is being upgraded to close capability gaps for these operations, the director of the Defense Department’s overseeing doctrine, training, requirements, and material solutions to counter drones said on Tuesday.
The Forward Area Air Defense (FAAD) C2 is integrating fire control radars and delivering drone defeat systems such as the Coyote interceptor, directed energy, and electronic warfare in areas of operations like U.S. Central Command and “doing it successfully,” Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, director of the Joint C-sUAS Office, said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Army is focused on decision aid tools based on artificial intelligence and machine learning that can process “large amounts of data” and be incorporated into FAAD C2 to process to close capability gaps, Gainey said.
“That’s the next level threat that we’ll face and so investing in that now, still using the same C2, but finding ways to fight today,” Gainey said. “But looking at the future is kind of how we’re doing it and getting after that problem.”
Gainey was responding to a question from the moderator, CSIS missile defense expert Tom Karako, who highlighted that a lesson learned from Ukraine’s war against Russia is that country’s ability to piece together a simpler C-sUAS C2 solution on a “single pane of glass” versus being able to rely on a more sophisticated integrated fire control system.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] developed the open architecture-based FAAD C2, which has been operational for nearly 20 years. The system was designated by DoD in 2020 as the interim C2 capability for C-sUAS. A C-sUAS report released by CSIS on Tuesday says that FAAD C2 is currently hosted on a Miltope SRNC-17 laptop and Dell 7212 tablet computer.
Initially, there was a push for a more advanced C2 capability to support the C-sUAS mission before the decision was made to stick with FAAD C2.
Gainey said he is providing funding to different military service program executive offices to close capability gaps.
FAAD C2 could also be integrated into the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, providing a low-cost capability to protect against low-cost interceptors aimed at an expensive fire control radar system, Gainey said.