"The US Army is taking lessons from Ukraine's drone war and pushing soldiers to design, build, and 3D print their own systems. At the Army's first annual Best Drone Warfighter competition held this week at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the participating soldiers were encouraged not only to bring their own drone builds and modify them on-site but also to share tips and tricks across the service."
"Army officials said this kind of innovation at the individual soldier level is essential to the Army's adoption of uncrewed aerial systems. The competitive event allowed the Army to learn more about the skill sets behind its best drone operators, including seeing "what kind of innovation, like grassroots soldier-level innovation is happening, that we can then take and scale across the Army," Col. Nicholas Ryan, director of Army UAS Transformation at the Aviation Center of Excellence and lead of the drone competition, told reporters."
"For those events, the regulations weren't strict. "Whether you received it as an Army program of record, you bought it off the shelf from the blue list, or you built it yourself, you 3D printed it and built it yourself, bring whatever you have," Ryan said, explaining that really the only rule was the drones had to fit in a rucksack."
The US Army held its first annual Best Drone Warfighter competition at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Soldiers were encouraged to bring custom-built and 3D-printed drones, modify them on-site, and share techniques across the force. Army leaders said grassroots, soldier-level innovation is essential to adopting uncrewed aerial systems. Standard drones like the Necros Archer and Skydio were used in obstacle-course events to level the playing field when evaluating operators. For other events the only constraint was that drones fit in a rucksack, allowing government-approved, off-the-shelf, or homemade systems. The program aimed to identify scalable soldier innovations and operator skill sets inspired by Ukrainian drone tactics.
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