Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) remain a significant threat on the modern battlefield, and various efforts are underway to mitigate such threats. Although large drones can be downed by surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), such ordnance can be overkill for smaller drones, not to mention a highly expensive option.
Now, the United States Air Force has initiated a new program through its Air University Innovation Accelerator, in which students are exploring ways to counter small drones and other unmanned aircraft. Recent drone sightings over U.S. military bases domestically have shown that this is a worrisome concern. Likewise, Ukrainian military personnel continue to employ commercial off-the-shelf drones outfitted with small explosives to strike Russian vehicles, forward posts, and other targets of opportunity.
Blue Team Effort
The new “Alpha Blue” innovation program presented students from the Air War College and Air Command and Staff College with real-world programs and then called upon them to produce ideas that could be quickly tested.
“It’s less about getting it perfect and more about finding what works,” the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) explained.
The use of drones is also expanding faster than the systems to counter them.
“Recent conflicts from across the Middle East and throughout Ukraine have signaled a dramatic change to the character of warfare with the increased use of unmanned aerial systems,” said Lt. Col. Shain Bestick, Air War College student. “Governments are scrambling to counter this threat.”
The Pentagon has also seen how small drones have become a serious force multiplier.
“It’s not just conventional militaries,” added U.S. Army Col. Ron Stewart, Air War College student. “Everything from terrorist organizations to lone actors are able to get their hands on this technology and create serious threats.”
The goal of the new program is to improve counter-UAS efforts. AETC noted that to better understand the issue, the Alpha Blue team worked with drone operators, program offices, academic partners, and industry. This allowed for a narrower focus, while highlighting what current approaches had already fallen short.
“We knew that engaging stakeholders early and often would help us shape our understanding of the problem set,” said Stewart. “There’s a lot happening in this space, but the threat is exceeding the pace we can keep up with.”
Overcoming Key Challenges
The initial efforts found that “several challenges” consistently arose, including that anti-drone systems can be expensive, don’t scale well, and often don’t connect. It further noted that a capability gap existed between military capabilities and what is currently allowed in civil airspace.
“Military and civil organizations don’t have an integrated way to detect, locate, discriminate, and defeat these threats at scale,” Stewart warned.
The team acknowledged that a different approach was needed. Instead of relying on large, centralized systems, which is often common with the military, it looked at what could be done with smaller, distributed tools already in use, including off-the-shelf systems.
The counter-UAS efforts employed commercial devices and multiple sensing methods to detect and track drones, with processing performed locally rather than relying on a constant network connection.
“We are changing the game from centralized systems to distributed networks,” Bestick said. “Our architecture uses a mesh of commercial devices and processes data locally, reducing cost and increasing resilience.”
24 Hour Turnaround
As part of the Alpha Blue effort, the team worked with Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) and Troy University. Both of the Alabama schools have partnered with the U.S. Air Force on drone programs. AUM has been working on counter-drone (c-UAS) technology, whereas Troy University was the first in the Heart of Dixie to join the FAA’s Unmanned Aerial Systems College Training Initiative (UAS-CTI), and it offers a UAS minor, an Associate of Science in General Education with a UAS emphasis, and specific coursework in drone operations.
The recent program focused on rapid prototyping, with the goal of seeing whether the idea worked, not of building a finished system.
Consider it a proof-of-concept that could lead to further advances.
“In less than 24 hours, a student team demonstrated a software solution that could differentiate between multiple classes of drones,” said Lt. Col. Gene Carder, Air War College student. “Our focus was on learning over perfection and validating key assumptions.”
As the effort continued, students built additional prototypes using commercial hardware and artificial intelligence tools while keeping costs low.
“Some of those systems are now moving toward flight testing, which will provide a better sense of how they perform outside a controlled environment,” AETC explained. It added that “legal and policy considerations remain part of the equation,” particularly for operations within the United States.
“We had to ensure the system was legally permissible, especially when operating in the national airspace and accounting for privacy protections,” said Maj. Allison Johnson, Air Command and Staff College student. “The goal is to augment human decision-making while maintaining accountability and minimizing data exposure.”
Overcoming Challenges
The team also had to overcome significant challenges, including fragmented approaches across the U.S. armed services and a lack of a shared data environment to support artificial intelligence development.
“There’s a lot of reinventing the wheel,” Johnson said. “A shared data repository would significantly accelerate progress across the Department of War.”
Still, Alpha Blue and similar efforts are not meant to replace existing programs. Instead, the goal is to develop solutions quickly, which can lead to faster testing and, in turn, provide leaders with a better understanding of what might work before larger decisions are made.
Air University is poised to deliver quick solutions to increasingly complex problems, in this case, the threat posed by small drones.
“This prototype is just the beginning,” Bestick said. “We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and look forward to the next iteration.”
