US Army to experiment with C-UAS for autonomous breaching vehicles

A Ford F250 equipped with the Forterra Overdrive autonomy stack was tested during a Project Sandhills event at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (US Army 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)

US Army engineers are experimenting with how to protect unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) during breaching operations, a US Army leader told Janes on 13 July.

First person view (FPV) unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are heavily proliferated in Ukraine where the US donated its breaching vehicles in 2025. Because these systems could jeopardise a breaching operation in a future conflict, the Sandhills Project with the 18 ^th Airborne Corps is testing counter-UAS (C-UAS) technology on the autonomous vehicle technology it has been developing in recent years, Command Sergeant Major Corey Wilkens with 20 ^th Engineer Brigade told Janes in an interview.

The first iteration of Sandhills Project resulted in the Lancer UGV based on the Polaris Ranger 1500 utility vehicle being sent to Ukraine. “We did not incorporate a counter UAS mechanism to protect the vehicle, and coming out of there, we said we have to have a counter UAS system to protect the vehicle,” CSM Wilkens explained.

Sandhills Project 2.0 is made up of four Ford F250s equipped with Forterra's data fabric and AutoDrive software. Of those four, two of them are equipped with kinetic C-UAS systems provided by defence company 9 Mothers, he said. The C-UAS queuing and kinetic kill system Edda is a remote turret with a shotgun effector that can target “fast-moving 7-in drones at 10–100 m”, according to 9 Mothers' website. It uses acoustic sensors for detection, but there is an optional active radar that can be used as well, according to the website.