TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The annual Special Operations Forces Week is underway in Tampa, where military contractors from around the world gathered to showcase the latest in defense technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the biggest focuses at the convention was drones. From air to ground to water, drones were everywhere on display, highlighting the growing role they play in modern warfare.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrones are a total paradigm shift \u2014 it\u2019s a new world,\u201d said Will Maeya, CEO of Adler Aerospace.<\/p>\n
Maeya\u2019s company builds several types of drones, including systems currently being used on the battlefield in Ukraine. He said the drone industry is expanding rapidly and changing the future of combat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically lowered the barrier to entry for anyone wanting the effectiveness of an air force,\u201d Maeya said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen countries investing millions of dollars and getting trillions of dollars of benefit. We see it in Ukraine, where they are producing a thousand drones a day, and 90% of the casualties are now all drone-related between Ukraine and Russia. It\u2019s pretty much the future in terms of warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drones have become a major part of recent conflicts, from Iran to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo more tanks and people shooting at each other. It\u2019s going to be drone-on-drone moving forward, like Terminator,\u201d Maeya said.<\/p>\n
Bryan Stern, founder of Grey Bull Rescue, said his organization has seen firsthand how drones are reshaping the battlefield.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe conduct missions in denied areas,\u201d Stern said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of work in Ukraine, a lot of work in Israel, Iran, Syria, Lebanon \u2014 the modern battlespace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stern said small, inexpensive drones have had an especially significant impact because they are easy to use.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is not a lot of risk if you are the enemy in using drones because they are cheap, they are easy, they are extremely effective,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n
He also emphasized the importance of counter-drone technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cCounter-drone is mission critical to all the formations within special operations,\u201d Stern said. \u201cBeing able to deploy drones so we can find, finish, collect, analyze against the bad guys, but also to be able to protect the force from enemy drones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides the display of drones, other companies are showing off their counter-drone technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur system tracks and mitigates drones. There is a huge threat going around with drones right now,\u201d said Zohar Elbaz of Sentrycs.<\/p>\n
The company has developed drone-detecting technology that can be used for everything from securing military bases to protecting large public events.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have our system in the middle that can create a no-fly zone,\u201d Elbaz said. \u201cOur system can detect the drone automatically. We have a DJI drone and a Parrot that are being detected.\u201d<\/p>\n
As drone technology continues to evolve, industry leaders say there is little doubt drones will remain a crucial part of the modern battlefield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The annual Special Operations Forces Week is underway in Tampa, where military contractors from around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59903,274,276,2200,4029,2583,115,99,135,137,136,1576,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-278607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-military","tag-app-top-stories","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-jeff-van-sant","tag-military","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-technology","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}