- Seven companies received awards worth $500 million each
- About $50 million was obligated at the time of award
- The Army has committed more than $5 billion against Domestic Shield’s $7 billion ceiling
The U.S. Army has awarded 10 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a combined ceiling of $4.15 billion for counter-drone systems supporting Domestic Shield.
Joint Interagency Task Force 401 issued the awards, the Army said Tuesday. Allen Control Systems, Digital Force Technologies, DroneShield, L3Harris WESCAM, Napatree Technology, RADA Technologies and SRC each received $500 million. Echodyne and PVP Advanced EO Systems each secured $250 million. SmartShooter received $150 million.
About $50 million was obligated at the time of award, Defense One reported.
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What Do the Domestic Shield Contracts Cover?
The required technologies span the full spectrum from detection to defeat, including optical scopes that enable soldiers to shoot down drones with standard rifles, robotic weapon stations, compact radars, and long-range tracking cameras.
Domestic Shield is a Department of War effort to improve counter-drone protection for high-priority defense facilities and assets in the United States. JIATF-401 prioritizes locations by threat, vulnerability, criticality and mission requirements.
Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, director of JIATF-401, said the task force works with the services to identify capabilities for specific operational requirements and deliver them quickly.
How Much Room Remains Under the Domestic Shield Program?
The Army has awarded more than $5 billion against a $7 billion ceiling, counting these 10 contracts and earlier awards, according to Col. Tony Lindh, the task force’s lead for rapid acquisitions. He said additional contracts are expected before the end of next month.
Those earlier awards include a $500 million IDIQ to CACI in July, with SkyValor selected for the first task order, and a nearly $500 million sole-source IDIQ to AV. AV separately booked an $80.5 million purchase order for its Titan MS system in July supporting Air Force Global Strike Command.
Demand has surged as the fiscal year closes, Ross said, because an available contract vehicle makes procurement easier to execute.
What Is the C-UAS Marketplace?
JIATF-401 runs a multi-vendor marketplace intended to identify and transition commercial counter-drone systems.
Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said the marketplace enforces open architecture standards to break proprietary vendor lock-in and allow new systems to integrate into existing defense networks.
