The U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division has completed the latest phase of its counter drone experimentation, a live-fire exercise from April 7–9 testing cUAS systems for its “Golden Shield” counter-drone concept for an armored formation. This significant step in the division’s Pegasus Charge initiative incorporated autonomous cUAS battlefield effectors for the first time, advancing efforts to protect U.S. forces from the growing threat of small unmanned aerial systems. Exercise Golden Shield integrated advanced sensors, kinetic and non-kinetic effectors and command-and-control systems to create an autonomous cohesive defense against small UAS. The effort, led by the 1st Cavalry Division in collaboration with Army DEVCOM and industry partners, aims to enhance the protection of armored vehicles and their crews while maneuvering. The system links sensors and weapons on tactical vehicles to automatically detect, track and engage threats, significantly shortening the sensor-to-shooter timeline and reducing cognitive load.

“The intent is to take these systems we tested this week and begin to integrate them within our armored formations’ training,” said Maj. Kevin Correa, 1st Cavalry Division’s air and missile defense chief. “In that way, we are able to fully exercise not only the systems, but the tanker’s ability to manage these systems while conducting their normal operations.”

“The future is formation-based layered protection, and this is the start of that,” said Alfred Grein, executive director for Research and Technology Integration for the U.S. Army Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center. “Some (of the systems) are more mature than others. But understand that’s part of why we do experiments to determine what we think is ready to hand-off to Soldiers in the field environment.”