North Carolina’s Duke University will lead a new $24-million US Army research hub focused on developing technologies to detect, disrupt, and seize control of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Funded through a six-year cooperative agreement from the Army Research Office, the hub will operate as the Inducing Cyber and Physical Effects in Unmanned Aerial Systems via Cyber-Electromagnetic Convergence (ICE-CEM) center.
The program brings together defense industry giant Lockheed Martin and researchers from leading academic institutions, including Georgia Tech, Penn State, Princeton, Texas A&M, the University of Michigan, and Washington University in St. Louis.
Building Anti-Drone Playbook System
ICE-CEM will develop an autonomous library of counter-drone capabilities linked through a dynamic cyber-electromagnetic network.
The system will detect incoming drones, identify weaknesses in their hardware and software, and select a tailored method of attack.
Potential responses include spoofing satellite navigation signals, injecting corrupted data into onboard sensors, and overriding UAS flight control software.
The approach is intended to defeat increasingly autonomous drones that can continue operating after losing communications or external control links.
“Traditional electronic warfare has largely focused on disrupting communications or navigation,” said Miroslav Pajic, electrical and computer engineering professor at Duke and lead researcher for ICE-CEM.
“But increasingly autonomous drones will be able to continue their missions even when those links are lost. ICE-CEM takes a fundamentally broader approach by looking across the entire system.”
Driving ‘Singular Goal’
Seven faculty members from Duke’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering will form the center’s core research team.
Their work will draw on artificial intelligence security, edge computing, wireless networks, and game theory to anticipate adversary tactics and develop countermeasures.
Lockheed Martin will help move promising concepts from laboratory research toward fieldable military systems.
“We have already seen firsthand how unmanned systems are reshaping modern warfare, and the pace of innovation in drone technology, autonomy, and electronic warfare is only accelerating,” Pajic explained.
“ICE-CEM is about getting ahead of that evolution by giving operators a continuously adapting arsenal of effects.”
Jerome Lynch, Vinik Dean of Engineering at Duke, echoed that sentiment, saying the institute is “proud to launch this partnership” that paves the way to “control the cyber-electromagnetic interactions” of UAS.
“Its singular goal is protecting our armed forces and our nation from the destructive power of drones,” Lynch added.
