Army asks Leonardo DRS to build vehicle-mounted counter-drone systems with sensors and machine guns

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – Counter-drone experts at Leonardo DRS will develop, build, and deploy a military vehicle-mounted weapon to detect, destroy, or disable small, inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like commercial quadcopters that are operating as airborne improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Officials of the U.S. Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., announced a $189.8 million five-year contract Monday to the Leonardo DRS Land Systems segment in St. Louis to build and support the Mobile-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System (M-LIDS).

The company has been developing M-LIDS since 2017 to disable small UAVs that pose threats to U.S. military forces. The M-LIDS design uses two military vehicles -- one that detects and tracks UAV threats, and the other that shoots them down or jams their control signals.

M-LIDS is mounted on two mine-resistant, ambush-protected all-terrain vehicles (M-ATVs) -- one carrying the Leonardo DRS elevated mast-mounted surveillance and battlefield reconnaissance equipment (EO/IR sensors), and the other with a reconfigurable weapon that fires several different kinds of machine guns. M-LIDS also uses a small UAV.

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The system's Reconfigurable Integrated-Weapons Platform (RIwP) was developed by Leonardo DRS and Moog Inc. in Elma, N.Y.

Military counter-UAV systems rely on multi-layered detection technologies that can involve sensors and machine guns. These systems often include infrared sensors, RF scanners, radar, visible-light cameras, RF jammers, and tracking software. They also can include a variety of kill capabilities, from guns and rockets to lasers and electronic warfare (EW).

In July 2018, the Army announced a $13 million award to Leonardo DRS to continue engineering and testing the M-LIDS. In October 2017, the company won a $43 million production contract for an undisclosed number of M-LIDS to meet the Army’s need to counter small inexpensive UAVs.

On this contract Leonardo DRS will do the work at locations to be determined with each order, and should be finished by July 2025. For more information contact Leonardo DRS Land Systems online at www.leonardodrs.com, Moog at www.moog.com, or the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal at https://acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc-rsa/.