The Pentagon’s counter-drone task force and software company Kaizen Laboratories have developed a new online marketplace built to help users find and acquire systems for defending against uncrewed aerial systems.
The “Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Marketplace” is a catalog that military, federal government, and law enforcement personnel can use to assess validated systems, from kinetic weapons to jammers, and submit requests to buy them.
It’s an example of the Pentagon’s push to make it faster and easier for troops and other government users to acquire commercially developed technology and get it into the field.
Kaizen was awarded a $15 million contract by the Joint Interagency Task Force-401 in May to build and operate the marketplace. The newly unveiled enhanced platform allows users to search systems by requirements, review performance data, compare capabilities and features, and purchase equipment.
Defense officials have said that online shops like the C-UAS Marketplace help bypass traditional weapons acquisition processes that can be slow, fragmented, and difficult for users to navigate. Companies have said the same.
“These are broken, disconnected application layer systems that are preventing real capability from being deployed at the edge as fast as possible, and as we all know, it’s presenting a critical readiness problem for the armed forces,” said Kaizen CEO Nikhil Reddy.
Reddy told reporters last week that “threats are changing so quickly, but the systems that we actually have, the software layer, the application layer used to discover, evaluate, acquire, procure these systems, is so far behind what it needs to be. And operators are losing time, and in some cases, there’s a loss of life if we can’t move fast enough.”
The US war with Iran has demonstrated the need for cheaper and more prolific counter-UAS weapons and equipment. Both American and allied forces have expended large numbers of expensive munitions shooting down Iranian Shahed drones.
Iran’s one-way attack drones, along with waves of missiles, have struck US and partner forces, resulting in both infrastructure damage and casualties. During the opening days of the war, six US soldiers were killed by a drone attack in Kuwait.
US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Iyer Ramakrishna
These attacks, along with the prevalence of drones in Russia’s war against Ukraine, have underscored the need for layered defenses that can defeat these kinds of inexpensive threats without relying primarily on costly missiles.
“Drones are a defining threat of our time,” Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, director of JIATF-401, said in a press statement. “The proliferation of small systems and small drones and the threat that they pose both to critical infrastructure and to defense critical assets requires us to move faster in this space.”
“In order to address this threat, we are expanding the counter-UAS marketplace to allow us to share best practices and equipment globally,” he said.
The new enhanced C-UAS Marketplace features a library of forms and permits, and a planning tool through which users can describe a threat, identify systems that meet their needs and budget, and receive AI-generated recommendations “across all aspects of the kill chain,” Reddy said.
The current platform went live two weeks ago and was built from a blank slate in less than nine weeks, he added.
He said that some vendors with approved counter-UAS systems, such as Anduril and AeroVironment, have already put their products on the marketplace. Future vendors can send in product information for the task force’s approval. US partners and allies will also be able to use the platform.
“JIATF-401 remains focused on delivering the right counter-UAS capabilities to the right users at the right time,” US Army Maj. Mike Hapner, JIATF-401’s C-UAS marketplace lead, said in a press statement.
“Our revolutionary marketplace, powered through our partnership with industry, creates a streamlined, trusted pathway for the Joint Force, domestic law enforcement, and our international partners to rapidly discover and acquire validated technologies,” he said.
The counter-UAS shop bears some resemblance to Ukraine’s combat technology marketplace, the Brave1 Market, an Amazon-style platform for drones and counter-drone capabilities. Local manufacturers post their products on the site, and Ukrainian military units buy them and leave reviews and ratings.
The Ukrainian defense ministry has said the average delivery time for in-stock products has fallen from 10 to 14 days to eight days for front-line troops.