- Air University students are developing and rapidly testing distributed counter-drone concepts through the Alpha Blue innovation program to address the growing threat from small unmanned aerial systems.
- Early prototypes using commercial hardware and AI tools are moving toward flight testing as the U.S. military seeks faster, lower-cost counter-UAS solutions.
United States Air Force students at Air University are working on new ways to counter small drones through the Alpha Blue innovation program, as the military faces a threat that has expanded rapidly across recent conflicts and domestic installations.
The latest effort brought together students from the Air War College and the Air Command and Staff College to focus on small unmanned aerial systems, a problem that has grown faster than many existing defenses were built to handle. The work is being carried out through Alpha Blue, part of the Air University Innovation Accelerator, where students are tasked with solving operational problems drawn directly from the field and turning those ideas into concepts that can be tested quickly.
The urgency behind the project is rooted in how modern warfare is changing. Conflicts in Ukraine and across the Middle East have shown how inexpensive, commercially available drones can be adapted for surveillance, strike missions, and attacks on infrastructure. Lt. Col. Shain Bestick, an Air War College student, said those conflicts have “signaled a dramatic change to the character of warfare with the increased use of unmanned aerial systems,” adding that governments are “scrambling to counter this threat.”
Many of these drones are cheap, easy to modify, and difficult to track once airborne. The threat is no longer limited to state militaries. U.S. Army Col. Ron Stewart said that “everything from terrorist organizations to lone actors are able to get their hands on this technology and create serious threats.”
To better understand where current defenses fall short, the student team worked with military operators, program offices, academic institutions, and industry partners. Those discussions repeatedly pointed to the same problems: systems are costly, difficult to scale, and often unable to work together. Stewart said military and civil organizations still lack “an integrated way to detect, locate, discriminate and defeat these threats at scale.”
Rather than building around large centralized systems, the team explored a more distributed approach using smaller tools already widely available. Their concept uses a network of commercial devices and multiple sensing methods to detect and track drones, while processing data locally instead of depending on a constant network connection. Bestick said the architecture shifts the focus “from centralized systems to distributed networks,” relying on “a mesh of commercial devices” to lower costs and improve resilience.
The project quickly moved from concept to prototype. Working with Auburn University at Montgomery and Troy University, students produced a software solution in less than 24 hours that was able to distinguish between multiple classes of drones. Lt. Col. Gene Carder said the team’s focus was on “learning over perfection and validating key assumptions.”
Students then built additional prototypes using commercial hardware and artificial intelligence tools while keeping costs low. Some of those systems are now moving toward flight testing, which should provide a clearer picture of how they perform outside controlled conditions.
The work also includes legal and policy safeguards, particularly for operations inside the United States. Maj. Allison Johnson said the team had to ensure the system was legally permissible in national airspace and compatible with privacy protections, while still supporting human decision-making.