Fort Benning soldiers optimize drone capabilities at new innovation lab

Yahoo

14-05-2025

FORT BENNING, Ga. () — The U.S. Army has been implementing drone technology into its operations for years, in an effort to reduce unnecessary soldier deaths. Fort Benning's experimental force and Maneuver Innovation Lab play key roles in optimizing drone capabilities.
'Alright, just go through the box there,' Sgt. Zakary Kinard instructs Pfc. Sebastian Kelleher, who is piloting palm-sized drone through an obstacle course.
Kinard and Kelleher both work with the U.S. Army's experimental force. Part of their mission is training with drone technology, as well as collaborating with Fort Benning's new Maneuver Innovation Lab.
An infantryman by training, Kelleher has adapted to working with his team but it was jarring at first.
'Being that I was mainly trained to have a weapon on ground and walk with my feet, having a drone in hand was completely new,' Kelleher said.
He joined the Army about a year-and-a-half ago, joining the experimental force after finishing his initial training. The job has involved plenty on-the-spot learning.
'A lot of this is experimental, so his [Kinard's] training is directly, like, applied to what you're going to be doing outside,' Kelleher said. 'You've got to trust your equipment, trust your team.'
Working with the Maneuver Innovation Lab, the experimental force tests drones and other technology, optimizing it for use by the Army.
The lab is a collaboration between soldiers, Columbus State University students, vendors, contractors and potential contractors, who work together to identify technology strengths and weaknesses and engineer solutions.
For drones, they're looking at everything from visuals and range to battery life and load-carrying capacity, which all impact usage in military operations.
'The purpose of, you know, the Black Hornet, all the different aerial assets that we have, is to, you know, gain situational awareness on the battlefield,' Kinard said. 'It minimizes the threat level to us ourselves and partnering forces.'
The Black Hornet is a short-range reconnaissance drone. According to Kinard, the Army can use it in place of a human to conduct surveillance and check hallways and rooms for signs of danger.
'We always want to put the technology in front of the forces just to eliminate casualties,' Kinard said.
But using drone technology in place of soldiers can still come with caveats.
According to Kelleher, the Black Hornet drone, specifically, is slow-moving and has a battery life of just 40 minutes. Its docking station has a battery life of three hours and a charge time of about an hour-and-a-half.
Drones are also unable to gather all of the same information a human would.
'As soldiers, we're trained to have, to use, all of our senses,' said Kinard. 'So, we're not necessarily getting all the feedback that we would if we had an actual soldier out there.'
Whether a soldier will go in person or use a drone to conduct reconnaissance depends on the situation and its risk level.
Kinard said, 'There's times that we would put a person out there. We just try to eliminate it as much as possible with the assets that we have.'
According to Kelleher, some recent suggestions the experimental force has made at the Maneuver Innovation Lab are already being implemented.
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