The 1st meeting of the SCI-321 task group, titled “UAV Application in Military Search” was held at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) and Swedish EOD & Demining Centre (SWEDEC)- Linköping and Eskjö, Sweden on 3-4 Apr 2019. The objective of this three-year Task Group is to assess the potential, limitations and challenges of the use of UAVs for the detection of targets in Military Search operations. A Cooperative Demonstration of Technology (CDT) in which defence R&D agencies, academia and industry will be invited to participate, can be foreseen as part of the assessment.
The 1st meeting included 16 attendees from: C-IED CoE, GBR, FRA, NLD, SWE, DEU and USA. The beginning of the first day’s meeting included 3 national presentations from Sweden, USA and Great Britain pertaining to current and developing UAV-borne documentation and detection systems. The majority of the first day was focused on the military search scenarios which included type of search, targets, and environments. The four agreed upon scenarios were route search (defensive), building search (defensive), working at heights (defensive which include under bridges, arena/venue rafters, etc.), and outdoor area search (offensive). A subtask group, which the CIED CoE is involved in, was established to cement the details of each of the four scenarios. The second day was a site visit to the SWEDEC Test and Evaluation facilities, which include Norra Kulla mine lanes, Sensorbanan long term mine and IED field, and the EOC indoor test facility.