Soldiers Partner With Researchers to Develop Best-Drone Entry

ADELPHI, Md. - Researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, or DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory harnessed bottom-up Soldier innovation to develop an experimental 3D-printed small unmanned aerial system, or drone, that was demonstrated at the inaugural U.S. Army Best Drone Warfighter Competition in Huntsville, Alabama.

Known as the Soldier Portable Autonomous Reconnaissance Transitioning Aircraft, or SPARTA, the drone was developed at DEVCOM ARL in collaboration with Soldiers. By incorporating Soldier feedback early in the design process and leveraging ARL's world-class research facilities, researchers developed a 3D-printable, easy-to-assemble drone designed to enhance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. ARL is actively working to partner the technology with industry to get into the hands of the warfighter.

At the competition, ARL researchers served as subject matter experts and judges, while also showcasing SPARTA to key senior Army commanders and Soldiers, gathering feedback and fostering new relationships with Soldier units to improve SPARTA and future drones with industry.

"Our team at ARL has been working on new types of small unmanned aerial system designs for several years," said Dr. John Hrynuk, mechanical engineer at ARL. "When Soldiers visited ARL last spring, they expressed the need for a lightweight, modular drone that could be easily assembled, repaired and adapted in the field. Building on previous designs, we developed SPARTA based on their input. By August, we started delivering prototypes for experimentation."

Weighing just two pounds, SPARTA combines vertical takeoff and landing capabilities of a helicopter with the forward-winged flight of an airplane. This unique design significantly improves endurance compared to traditional quad-rotor drones, which typically lack wings. The SPARTA has an expected flight time of 30 to 60 minutes, with a range of more than 30 kilometers based on payload, while operating below 500 feet above ground level.

The drone's area for electronic components is a relatively large, open bay, so most components can be mounted easily and swapped out in minutes, allowing Soldiers to switch camera mounts to meet mission-specific needs.

An entire airframe can be 3D printed overnight and assembled without specialized tools or technical expertise.

"When Soldiers are asked to learn to fly expensive, commercially available drones, they worry about crashing them and then fly less often," Hrynuk said. "With SPARTA, we kept the total cost at just over $1,000 and found that the easily replaceable 3D-printed airframe absorbs most of the damage from a crash. The electronics can be reused once the next airframe print is complete."

The winning teams of the drone competition received a SPARTA drone prototype and a one-year research-and-development memorandum of agreement from ARL to assist the lab with design improvements.

"We offered to share several SPARTA platforms with the winners of the competition," said Dr. Asha Hall, ARL branch chief. "We want to continue to provide science and technology support to Soldier innovations and foster cross collaboration between the ARL platforms team and Army units."

Last fall, Soldiers experimented with SPARTA in operational conditions during the 1st Infantry Division's Danger Gauntlet event at Fort Riley, Kansas. The event is a rigorous field training exercise that challenges Soldiers with multi-day combat scenarios, tactical maneuvers and live-fire exercises.

During the Danger Gauntlet exercise, the Army's Catalyst Pathfinder program worked with the 1st Infantry Division to integrate SPARTA and leverage the Buildable Innovation Shop for Operational Needs, called BISON. BISON is a mobile makerspace equipped with 3D printers and tools for drone development.

"The BISON system allows Soldiers to manufacture, assemble and repair their own drones at the point of need," said Dr. Arwen DeCostanza, ARL program manager for Catalyst Pathfinder and Accelerating Force. "Whether it's SPARTA or another design, Soldiers can use BISON to create mission-specific solutions on demand. This capability significantly enhances operational flexibility and effectiveness."

ARL also recently supplied the 11th Airborne Division with SPARTA. The researchers helped Soldiers to construct and operate the SPARTA and to fly it in realistic operational scenarios, while also gathering feedback to refine the design for future iterations to make it easier to fly.

This, and all of ARL's experimentation to harness Soldiers' ingenuity, support the Army's Transformation in Contact initiative to accelerate the delivery of new technologies to operational units.

Through programs like Catalyst Pathfinder and Accelerating Force, which are managed by ARL and the Civil-Military Innovation Institute, ARL transitions Soldier-inspired designs to industry for large-scale production, fosters direct partnerships to address critical operational needs, and accelerates the adoption of university and industry technologies through unit-focused experimentation.

"ARL's bottom-up approach ensures that technology works for Soldiers," DeCostanza said. "By working directly with Soldiers, we can integrate new technologies into realistic scenarios, enabling them to experiment, adapt and innovate from the ground up."

Hrynuk said the team gained valuable insights from working with Soldiers to experimenting with the drone at the Danger Gauntlet event.

"We revised the design based on their feedback," Hrynuk said. "They gave us excellent input that made SPARTA more intuitive and better aligned with how Soldiers want to use it."

Going forward, the team plans to share the SPARTA model with other operations units.

"We want to develop a Soldier-centric design and feedback cycle," Hrynuk said. "We hope that we can eventually change how the Army procures drones to deliver new technology faster."

The research team is engaging with industry to transition the technology for mass production.

"We laid the scientific groundwork, collaborated with Soldiers to develop a new product, and now, we can deliver a new commercial market for industry, markets that will manufacture this technology to add a new capability for our Soldiers," Hrynuk said.

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DEVCOM ARL is the Army's sole fundamental research laboratory serving as the nexus of science between the military, academia and industry. ARL executes globally recognized research to accelerate delivery of war-winning, disruptive technologies for tomorrow's Army.

For information, visit the Army Research Laboratory website.