Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens interoperability, cybersecurity, and standards for military and civil unmanned systems—improving operational effectiveness and oversight—but does so by reallocating existing RDT&E funds and imposing compliance, disclosure, and supplier constraints that could raise costs, slow deployments, and limit flexibility.
Service members and DoD planners will get a clear, phased open-architecture command-and-control (C2) framework that improves interoperability and joint operational effectiveness across U.S. forces and with allies.
Operators and programs will gain stronger cybersecurity and supply-chain protections (Zero Trust, encryption, red-team testing, lifecycle risk management), reducing the risk of UAS compromise and mission disruption.
DoD engineers, program managers, and contractors will benefit from clearer statutory definitions and consensus-based interface standards that reduce legal ambiguity and make multi‑vendor interoperability and acquisition easier.
Researchers, ongoing programs, and other RDT&E-funded efforts may lose or delay funding because the Act requires reallocation of existing RDT&E resources rather than new appropriations.
Contractors, suppliers, and ultimately taxpayers face higher procurement and compliance costs (NIST CSF alignment, red-team testing, modularization, retrofit to standards), which can increase program prices and procurement complexity.
Integrating open architectures with classified networks and adopting new interoperability approaches raises cybersecurity, classification, and technology‑transfer risks that may require costly mitigations or constrain functionality.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Directs DoD to assess allied open-architecture unmanned-system C2 frameworks, set interoperability and cybersecurity standards, create an advisory panel, and report findings to Congress and FAA.
Official title: Require the Secretary of Defense to assess and report on the feasibility of incorporating open-architecture, unmanned system command and control frameworks into Department of Defense unmanned system operations across all unmanned system tiers and domains, drawing on lessons from allied and partner country systems, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 24, 2026 by David Harold McCormick · Last progress June 24, 2026
Requires the Secretary of Defense to complete a near-term, comprehensive assessment of open-architecture unmanned system command-and-control (C2) frameworks used by allies and partners and to recommend whether and how the Department should adopt a modular, interoperable C2 framework. The law creates an independent advisory panel, sets cybersecurity and supply-chain requirements for any recommended framework, requires coordination with DoD modernization programs and FAA, and mandates reporting, public posting of unclassified findings, and periodic congressional updates. The assessment must examine operational and architectural lessons from demonstrated foreign systems (including Ukraine’s and Israel’s systems), evaluate interoperability and resilience in contested environments, recommend minimum capability and interface standards, and require any recommended DoD C2 solution to meet specified cybersecurity, testing, and procurement-origin restrictions. Funding must come from existing DoD RDT&E accounts; no new appropriations are authorized here.