Pentagon organizing contests to counter enemy drones.

• Author: Harper, Jon

The U.S. military is turning to contests that are open to nontraditional vendors to find innovative solutions to the growing danger posed by small enemy drones.

The upcoming challenges--one hosted by SOFWERX and the other by the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization--are focused on countering the types of unmanned aerial systems that can be purchased at brick-and-mortar stores or online. More and more of them are appearing on the battlefield, according to defense officials.

"U.S. forces are reporting lots of contact with this kind of UAS," Tony Davis, the director of acquisition agility at Special Operations Command, said in an interview with National Defense.

The Islamic State is using this type of equipment extensively, noted Army Lt. Gen. Michael Shields, the director of JIDO.

"ISIL is probably one of the most prolific terror groups when it comes to innovation in improvised weapons and then developing tactics to incorporate these innovations," Shields said.

"One of their most dangerous innovations has been the introduction of commercially available drones, drone technology and technical components to the battlefield," he added.

They are using them for a variety of missions including intelligence collection, support to ground forces, coordinating fire support and maneuver, adjusting indirect fire and facilitating improvised explosive device attacks. The group has also embraced them as a propaganda tool and a weapons delivery platform, Shields noted.

"It is their precision-guided munition," he said. "They're well integrated with their combat operations and ... they definitely pose a threat to U.S. and coalition forces, not to mention the homeland."

Pentagon officials are hoping that contests open to nontraditional vendors will yield new technologies and methods for taking on these enemy assets.

SOFWERX, an organization that helps connect SOCOM with technology innovators in the private sector, hosts monthly OpenWERX challenges to pursue innovative solutions to problems that the command is facing.

The outfit recently set up a prize contest to pit technologists against commercially available small drones.

"The idea is by tapping into non-traditional partners we may get ideas that we aren't getting or aren't getting fast enough from traditional defense industry or from within," said Davis. The initiative aims to draw in academia, startup businesses and "just the guy that likes to work on stuff on his weekends in his garage."

Like the other challenges that SOFWERX hosts, this one stems from input provided by commandos out in the field.

"We're actually pulling these Open-WERX challenges from conversations with our operators," said...