Blue Knight 2010

Army Brig. Gen. Jeff Colt, the head of the Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence (JUAS COE), recently led a UAS demonstration called "Blue Knight 2010" that tested U.S. manned and unmanned joint force capabilities against airborne unmanned systems. The U.S. Joint Forces Command website has a Q&A with Colt on the exercise. Here's an excerpt:

Q: What is the next step in the continuing evolution of counter UAS?

Colt: As technology evolves, threat capabilities will, too.  In UAS that may be even smaller and faster platforms—or it may include swarm (multiple) adversary UAS.

The next steps in counter UAS include going to a more comprehensive modeling and simulation.  I think we will see this more widely introduced into operational level exercises and at the combat training centers to expand baseline awareness for the tactical to operational decision makers.

I feel closer integration of exercise objectives between what has been done here and the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization's Black Dart exercises are necessary -- the Black Dart exercises focus more on future technologies -- we don't need a whole series of systems, but examining some emerging technologies may allow us to deal with the evolution of future UAS threats more effectively.  But the long-term solution lies in a balance between procedures and technology.

More than 50 nations now are employing UAS.  As the technology continues to proliferate, I think the sophistication in how those applications are employed is going to increase in the future.  I think it would be naïve not to believe that an intelligent and learning threat will try to use these systems to gain some local advantage or make a wider statement.

With that said, we really don't have either the time or financial resources to go out and develop a single perfect solution or capability to deal with all the potential threats.  As a result of that, we must adapt the systems that already exist and array them in a manner combined with validated procedures so we can detect, track, identify and then take action. We need to educate the joint force about what is available.

I am confident, given fundamental joint procedures and a better understanding of our existing joint capabilities, our joint warfighters are capable of taking the output of this exercise, and exercises similar to it, to devise even more relevant applications.