The US Army's xTech programme opened submissions on 6 November for a counter-uncrewed-aircraft fly-away kit sought by US Army Southern European Task Force, Africa. The requirement addresses protection of remote airfields and contingency locations, including sites near active civilian or military airports. The Army is asking for mature, portable and modular approaches to Group 1–3 small-drone threats. It lists five capability areas: combined systems, detection and identification, kinetic defeat, non-kinetic defeat and passive protection. These are requirements for entrants, not capabilities already delivered by a selected product.
Selection path and scale
Applications close on 17 November. The Army plans to select up to 15 finalists for $25,000 prizes and a February 2027 soldier exercise. It says up to five final winners could receive an additional $50,000 each. The competition advertises up to $1 million in cash prizes and the possibility of up to $5 million in later other-transaction agreements. Those amounts are ceilings and opportunities, not contracts awarded today. The Army explicitly says a submission does not guarantee an award and a follow-on agreement is discretionary.
Operational constraints under examination
The Army wants candidate systems to work with limited infrastructure and bandwidth, support rapid setup, tolerate denied or spoofed satellite navigation, and observe host-nation rules and collateral-effects limits. Its preference for open interfaces reflects the need to connect sensing, command systems and effectors at a temporary site. None of these requirements proves any entrant meets them. The next verifiable milestones are finalist selection, the planned soldier exercise, disclosed performance results and any separate procurement award.
Publication history
- — Added the Army's expeditionary counter-UAS competition with prize ceilings, future exercise and procurement boundaries explicit.
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