FORT BLISS, Texas / SOUTHWEST BORDER — The U.S. Army, in coordination with Joint Task Force North (JTF-North) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has initiated field evaluations of mobile Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) along the U.S.–Mexico border. The operational deployment comes in response to a surge in modified commercial multirotor drone activity utilized by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) for low-altitude smuggling, border surveillance, and kinetic attacks against rival organizations.
The testing evaluates multi-layered detection arrays, radio frequency (RF) direction finding, and directional electronic disruption to detect, identify, and defeat small uncrewed aerial systems (sUAS). Key capabilities tested include radar sensor fusion, electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) track correlation, and directional RF jamming suites capable of severing command-and-control (C2) and satellite navigation links without interfering with local civil telecommunications.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS: BORDER C-UAS EVALUATION ARCHITECTURE
* Operating Units & Agencies: U.S. Army, JTF-North, U.S. Department of Defense, CBP Air and Marine Operations
* Primary Threat Profile: Class 1 and Class 2 sUAS (commercial quadcopters, fixed-wing aerial drones used for surveillance and illicit payload delivery)
* Tactical Objective: Real-time detection, tracking, interdiction, and counter-surveillance along border corridors
* Detection & Sensor Suite:
* Surveillance Radars: Mobile pulse-Doppler short-range radars tailored for low radar cross-section (low-RCS) sUAS detection
* Signal Intelligence (SIGINT): RF spectrum analyzers to identify remote control, telemetry, and video downlinks
* Electro-Optics: High-definition day/night thermal optics w/ automated slewing for optical verification
* Interdiction & Effector Suite:
* Soft-Kill Disruption: Multi-band RF and GNSS directional jammers to force drone protocol fail-safes (RTH or immediate descent)
* C2 Architecture: Interoperable command-and-control software providing target queuing for border patrol tactical units
