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Pentagon fields 25,000 drone and counter-drone systems to CENTCOM, eyes new autonomous warfare command
The U.S. Department of Defense has fielded more than 25,000 unmanned and counter-UAS systems to troops in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility this year, backed by roughly $782 million in spending.
The U.S. Department of Defense has fielded more than 25,000 unmanned and counter-UAS systems to troops in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility this year, backed by roughly $782 million in spending. A structured production program is now driving drone unit costs from $5,000 toward $2,300 while scaling total orders to 150,000 units by January 2028.
The effort runs through DRPM-UxS, which the Department of Defense stood up in July by bringing together the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the War Department Innovation Unit and the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.
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The first of four planned production gauntlets ended in July. Twelve vendors collectively produced 30,000 drones at $5,000 per unit, a $150 million buy. The second gauntlet is running now, with ten vendors and roughly 60,000 units at the same $5,000 price point, scheduled to close in January. The department's target is a unit cost of $2,300 by the time the fourth gauntlet ends in January 2028, with cumulative orders reaching 150,000 drones across all rounds.
More than 24,000 counter-UAS systems went to the region to build what the department describes as a multilayered defensive shield protecting deployed forces against adversary drone attacks. Over the past year, the department's investment in unmanned systems across air, land and maritime domains has exceeded $6 billion.
Sea Power reported that the office plans to maintain a steady flow of systems to CENTCOM while broadening its delivery reach to Pacific Command, European Command, and the wider Joint Force. Sea Power also reported the department's characterization of the systems as "high-volume alternatives to legacy, multi-million-dollar exquisite munitions" that flip "the battlefield cost-exchange ratio firmly in favor of the United States."
In September, Secretary of War Hegseth expanded DRPM-UxS's mission by launching Project Agincourt, tasking it with establishing the Autonomous Warfare Command. The War Department says Project Agincourt is designed to pave the way for a new combatant command at the four-star level, focused on unmanned autonomous warfare and expected to be operational by October 1, 2027.
The scale of counter-UAS fielding reflects the demand for systems that can protect individual deployed forces. Aspetto, an integrated defense technology company founded in 2008, is developing LykonX, a wearable platform built on a patent-pending modular electronic architecture that integrates radio-frequency detection, acoustic detection and long-wave infrared thermal sensing directly into a plate carrier. The system fuses those inputs into a threat assessment with directional bearing and confidence value, then communicates it to the wearer through haptic alerts, without a screen or audible alarm. Aspetto says LykonX is designed to operate without cloud connectivity, an external server or any continuous network dependency, so it functions in denied and disconnected environments. LykonX is in final development.
Disclosure: Pop Smoke Media is owned by Aspetto, which is mentioned in this article.
This article was prepared with the help of AI tools and checked against the sources listed here.
Illustration created with AI for this article.
Sources: U.S. Department of Defense: https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4641652/centcom-benefits-from-project-agincourt-drone-dominance-efforts/; Sea Power: https://seapowermagazine.org/drpm-uxs-delivers-over-25000-autonomous-and-c-uas-systems-to-centcom-aor/; Aspetto: https://www.aspetto.com
