The US Army’s 532nd Military Intelligence Battalion ‘Black Horse,’ 501st Military Intelligence Brigade has been working in the Republic of Korea to identify and test viable capabilities supporting counter-uncrewed aircraft systems (C-UAS) operations for the past eight months.
Partnering with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, 2nd Infantry Division, industry partners and Republic of Korea Army forces, the unit executed Project MANOWAR, a series of two-week field experiments at Camp Humphreys (about 40 miles south of Seoul) and Baegiri Airfield, home of the Republic of Korea Army Drone Academy.
Project MANOWAR, short for Mobile Acoustic Network for Operational Warning and Aerial Reconnaissance, is a low-cost, attritable C-UAS capability designed to detect, classify and locate low-signature small unmanned aircraft systems, including lethal first-person-view drones.
Designed to fit within an integrated, layered air defence, the system features a 3D-printed chassis paired with a custom machine-learning algorithm developed in-house by military intelligence soldiers in collaboration with scientists from the Army Research Laboratory’s Mechanical Sensing Branch.
The US Army describes the system as a “self-healing mesh network” where individual sensors act as relay stations powered by standard military batteries.
“During trials at Baegiri Airfield, the system’s confidence rating against low-altitude threats increased significantly between the May and September events because of improved, Super Intelligence-enabled detection,” the US Army said in a press release, using the US government’s new terminology for artificial intelligence. “By September, the system validated high-fidelity classification and localisation capabilities, achieving more than 90% window-level confidence against low-altitude threats.”
The 532nd MI Battalion is now focused on transitioning the successful experiment to scaled production and a formal Army programme of record.
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Image: A US Army military intelligence Soldier assigned to the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade, observes unmanned aircraft systems at Baegiri Airfield, South Korea, Nov. 9, 2026. (US Army courtesy photo by
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