Drone threats evolve faster than traditional defense acquisition cycles. For Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), closing that gap means changing more than the equipment the government buys. It means optimizing how the Department of War tests technologies, compares evidence, connects systems and moves capabilities into operators’ hands.
At the Counter-UAS Accelerator Working Group (CUAS-AWG) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Colonel Scott Humr, Joint Interagency Task Force Science and Technology Division Chief, outlined a model that connects operational requirements, repeatable testing, shared performance data and a developing counter-UAS marketplace. His keynote, “The Evolving UAS and Counter-UAS Threat Environment,” made evidence central to that effort: buyers need to understand what a system can do, what testing supports those claims and how it fits their mission.
The workshop’s organizer, Jean-Marc Sheitoyan, brought a complementary perspective. The president of S4B Defense Corp. and program director for the working group began his career in industrial design before moving into defense and aerospace innovation, R&D, advanced technology, capability development, and strategic partnerships. His nearly two decades of experience include work supporting U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the U.S. Army and allied defense partners.
Sheitoyan chose Grand Forks for its concentration of aviation, research and defense resources, including Grand Forks Air Force Base, Grand Sky and the University of North Dakota. He framed the workshop around turning capability gaps into solutions that participants could test, integrate and deploy. A planned 90-day execution pipeline would carry opportunities forward by clarifying requirements, connecting partners and identifying concrete next steps.
Humr’s presentation put that collaborative ambition into an acquisition context. JIATF-401 wants to help build a counter-UAS ecosystem in which credible performance data travels with technology, rather than remaining scattered across disconnected demonstrations.
The Evolving Drone Threat Requires Mission-Specific Counter-UAS
For Col Humr, the defining characteristic of the drone threat is not simply technological sophistication; it is accessibility. Inexpensive, portable and easily modified aircraft put capabilities once associated with state actors within reach of a much broader range of users. Those systems can support surveillance, deliver contraband, disrupt operations or conduct attacks. But the aircraft alone does not define the threat. Who operates it, what it carries and what the operator intends to accomplish all shape the response.
“The point is not that every drone is hostile,” Humr said. “The point is that every unauthorized drone event must be understood within its own context.”
That context extends beyond the battlefield. A drone approaching an overseas installation presents a different problem than one operating near an airport, prison or crowded public venue. Col Humr argued that defenders need intelligence, early warning and coordination across organizational boundaries, rather than waiting for an aircraft to reach a facility’s fence line. In the homeland, that requires connecting military capabilities with civilian authorities, aviation safety, law enforcement and infrastructure protection.
Those differences also rule out a one-size-fits-all counter-UAS package. A strategic asset requires different protection from a recruiting station. A remote installation faces different constraints from a metropolitan venue. Buyers must match capabilities to the asset, likely threat, operating environment and consequences of failure.
“There’s no one sensor, one effector, one software package, one platform that will solve every problem,” Humr said.
His answer is defense in depth: integrated sensing, identification, tracking, command and control, passive protection and multiple response options. Redundancy helps prevent a failure in one layer from becoming a mission failure, while different response options let operators act within their authorities and operating constraints. Automation can reduce workload, but Col Humr emphasized responsible human oversight is still needed for identification, authorization and employment decisions.
That mission-specific approach explains why JIATF-401’s marketplace effort needs more than product listings. Buyers need evidence that helps them assess whether a technology can solve their particular problem, and interoperable components they can combine without locking themselves into a single vendor’s architecture. As Col Humr emphasized, delivering equipment is not the same as delivering capability. Training, permissions, sustainment and command relationships must work alongside the technology to enable an effective drone defense.
Counter-UAS Testing That Supports Buying Decisions
JIATF-401 is connecting requirements, system characterization, modeling and simulation, acquisition and operational feedback in a recurring cycle. Testing should inform buying decisions, fielded systems should generate new evidence, and that evidence should shape subsequent requirements and tests.
Humr pointed to Falcon Peak, an exercise that concluded at the end of September, and dedicated counter-UAS test lanes at Yuma Proving Ground. Vendors can bring systems into those lanes, undergo characterization and attempt increasingly complex tests. Army testing personnel help evaluate the resulting data.
The process also gives companies room to improve. At Falcon Peak, Col Humr said, vendors changed software during the event and tested those changes against representative threats. That rapid feedback helped them close performance gaps without waiting for another demonstration.
JIATF-401’s Common Criteria for Counter-UAS Characterization, or C4, aims to make those results useful beyond an individual event. “The principle is straightforward,” Humr said. “Test once to a credible standard, collect the data correctly, and make results usable across the enterprise.”
That approach could reduce repeated demonstrations that ask similar questions but produce inconsistent data. It also gives buyers a stronger basis for comparing systems across vendors and operating conditions. Col Humr said the task force wants to expand testing beyond desert environments to other representative locations.
What a Counter-UAS Marketplace Listing Will Mean
An approved product for the JIATF-401 Marketplace does not necessarily mean the system has passed rigorous government testing.
The task force does not want testing capacity to become a bottleneck that prevents customers from accessing potentially useful technology. Instead, Col Humr described a developing approach that would distinguish tested offerings from those supported primarily by vendor claims.
“We aim to have a number of badges next to systems to distinguish their capabilities,” he said, indicating which criteria a system had met and whether it had undergone testing. The marketplace’s final structure remains under development.
That distinction matters. A listing can improve access to technology without providing the same assurance as a documented operational assessment.
Col Humr encouraged buyers who purchase less-tested systems to provide feedback so JIATF-401 can build the evidence base. For more hazardous capabilities, he said the task force would seek supporting safety and review documentation before putting them forward in the marketplace.
Behind that effort will sit Tech Arsenal, a repository intended to consolidate performance information and supporting evidence for government users. Col Humr described a goal of collecting testing results, screening information and approvals in a way that reduces the need for organizations to repeat work already completed elsewhere. Some of that information would also become visible through the marketplace.
The ambition is not simply to create a larger catalog. It is to establish a purchasing environment that helps customers distinguish what has been demonstrated, what has been reviewed, and what remains uncertain.
Open Architecture as a Condition for Scale
Col Humr treated interoperability as a purchasing requirement, not an optional feature.
At Falcon Peak, vendors connected to Anduril’s Lattice command-and-control system and exchanged information through it, he said. But he emphasized that Lattice is not the only platform. He also identified SAPIENT as an information-exchange standard supporting the task force’s interoperability approach.
The broader objective is to let sensors, response technologies and command-and-control software evolve independently without forcing buyers to replace an entire system whenever one component changes. “A sensor should not become less valuable simply because it was built by a different company than the effector,” Humr said.
For industry, that changes the basis of competition. Companies should compete on performance, reliability, affordability, resilience and usability while providing open interfaces that allow their products to work within a larger network. Col Humr called for nonproprietary data formats and open application programming interfaces. That approach also supports a market beyond military users. Humr urged companies to design configurable systems for federal agencies, public safety organizations and critical infrastructure operators, while accounting for different operating environments and authorities.
How Industry Enters JIATF-401’s Evaluation Process
So how do vendors learn about requirements and get considered for events such as Falcon Peak?
Col Humr identified JIATF-401’s Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO, as the submission mechanism for its exercises. For Falcon Peak, he said, U.S. Northern Command supplied requirements focused on southern-border capability needs. A cross-functional team then screened CSO submissions.
The team contacts vendors, examines maturity and considers evidence from previous evaluations before selecting technologies. Col Humr distinguished offerings that remain “PowerPoint deep” from capabilities that other organizations have already observed.
The implication for suppliers is clear. While a compelling pitch helps, actual documented performance, integration readiness and a specific operational problem give evaluators more to work with.
Connecting Military and Civilian Counter-UAS Demand
With regard to the civilian-market proposition, can customers determine which systems they were authorized to buy and operate, and how to acquire them?
Col Humr described cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share evidence and align marketplace information where systems overlap. He said many offerings would have dual-use applications, while acknowledging that some military capabilities would not suit civilian customers.
His response outlined a direction rather than a complete purchasing and authorization map. Shared testing and marketplace information can help customers evaluate technology, but Humr’s broader message kept operational authorities, training and permissions within the definition of capability. Equipment alone does not resolve those requirements.
For JIATF-401, the next step is to make the connections work at scale through:
- Requirements that guide suppliers
- Testing that generates reusable evidence
- Interfaces that enable integration and
- A Marketplace that makes informed purchasing easier.
“The objective is not simply to acquire new UAS equipment,” Humr explained. Operators also need “the awareness, authority, training, integration and capability to respond effectively to drone threats.”
Photo credits: Drew Swenson / Livewire, courtesy of S4B Defense Corp.