WASHINGTON, D.C. — One-way attack drones, small first-person-view drones and small uncrewed ground vehicles are the focus of a Pentagon initiative established over the summer and discussed publicly for the first time today, according to the Army official in charge.
The effort, known as Task Force Easy, was “originally working for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, which is now transitioned to the [Joint Task Force] Autonomous Warfare,” said Col. Michael Penn, commander of the task force, while speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference here.
“We’re focused on initially first-person-view, one-way attack and how to rapidly iterate on that and make that capability better,” he said. “We’ve also been tasked to stand up a drone team that’s really focused on training and what are the latest TTPs [tactics, training and procedures] and standard development, also assisting CTCs’ [combat training centers’] new equipment training, as well as combat evaluations of this equipment.”
Penn told reporters after the session that Task Force Easy will use a competitive structure like previous DAWG efforts, adding that he expects these efforts to kick off “in the next month or so maybe.”
Asked why the task force was created, Penn noted DAWG was focused on larger autonomous systems.
“We are very much focused on small unmanned air systems and unmanned ground vehicles, so that piece that wasn’t covered previously,” he said.
The new task force comes after the Pentagon announced in late September it would move to establish an Autonomous Warfare Command.
