DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Tooele County, Utah (Gephardt Daily), April 22, 2022 — Swarms of military drones will soon take to the skies over the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Grounds in a major field exercise involving high-tech drones in simulated combat conditions.
During EDGE22, aka the Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise 2022, dozens of drones will swarm and attack in exercises designed to extend “the reach and lethality of FARA ecosystem to accelerate combined kill chains in all-domain operations,” according to a report on a U.S. army website.
FARA stands for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft.
More than seven partner nations, 15 Army units and 12 industry contractors will participate in the maneuvers running from Monday, April 25 through May 12, the report said.
“We’ll basically be scrimmaging with our partners and allies,” which will include Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom,” said Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, during an April 5 presentation at the Army Aviation Association of America conference in Nashville, reported by BreakingDefense.com.
The planned exercise will feature two air assaults focusing on electronic warfare efforts in coordination with the allies, “including electronic sensing and electronic attack, to enable the assault,” BreakingDefense.com reported.
According to a message posted on the U.S. Army Futures Command Facebook page, “Participants from across the U.S. Army will come together to build on lessons learned from previous experimentations by assessing new tactics, technologies and interconnecting architectures … to rehearse use cases in a theater relevant environment, allowing personnel to focus on network, range, reach, fires, electronic warfare and international integration.”
“Release the hounds” reads a post on the Dugway Facebook page on EDGE22, talking about the experiments with “drone swarms that behave more like a wolfpack.”
