Barry Rosenberg
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is the point office for the Defense Department’s efforts to bring in commercial technology — including the kind of small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that have proven so effective in Ukraine. DIU also screens and validates what they call “secure, trusted” UAS through a program called Blue UAS. It focuses on Group 1 and 2 small UAS, particularly commercially built quadcopters for short-range reconnaissance for Army, Marine Corps and special operations units.
DIU produces what’s called the Blue UAS Cleared List of platforms and components, including ground-control systems, from which military units can find verified systems and vendors for their specific missions. We discussed how it works with Blue UAS Project Lead Trent Emeneker.
TRENT EMENEKER: There’s three pieces of legislation that apply. The 2020 NDAA, the 2023 NDAA, and the 2024 American Security Drone Act all have pieces that apply specifically to hardware and components for use in UAS platforms. Those restrictions can be summarized as if a component can think, talk or communicate in some way, it can’t come from a prohibited country. For all intents and purposes, that means China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.
The first thing we do is ensure that platforms we are looking to add are in compliance with that part of the law. We do a physical tear down [and] look to see where the components we need to check come from and trace the supply chain back to understand if this is illegal for the law.
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