"First Polish, Romanian, and American troops trained together Nov. 18 in Poland on Merops, an AI-enabled, pickup-truck-transportable system that identifies enemy drones, then launches a cheap fixed-wing drone to ram them."
"It also demonstrated our capability, just as Flytrap did, to integrate with industry, to move very quickly to employ a capability that's lethal," Brig. Gen. Curt King, who leads the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Germany, told reporters Tuesday."
"It can defeat the Shahed-type threats, but also it demonstrates our ability to place capabilities that are much cheaper than some of our other previous systems that we've been using to date, to ensure that we are able to build the capacity against the drone threats that could be placed into the air."
"The other thing that we demonstrated with Flytrap, and that Ukraine has shown us ... is the technology is rapidly evolving so that we can get to enhanced decision aids and autonomy, which Ukraine has been rapidly developing, so that I don't need 10 soldiers to do a function," King said."
U.S. soldiers deployed to Europe conducted multinational counter-drone testing and competitions in November to evaluate emerging capabilities. Polish, Romanian, and American troops trained on Merops, an AI-enabled, pickup-truck-transportable system that identifies enemy drones and launches inexpensive fixed-wing interceptors to ram them. The Army hosted Operation Flytrap 4.5 in Germany, featuring 20 commercial cUAS contenders competing for equipment prizes. Leaders highlighted that cheaper interceptors and advancing autonomy reduce reliance on multimillion-dollar missiles and lower manpower demands. The Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate participated to vet systems and build a procurement marketplace for rapid fielding to units and allies.
Read at Nextgov.com
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