SenateS. 4633119th Congress
Unmanned and Autonomous Systems Strategy Act of 2026
Full Text
Official text as published. Use Ctrl+F / Cmd+F to search within the document.
[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4633 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 4633
To require a strategy for the deployment, employment, integration,
exportability, and scaling of unmanned and autonomous systems in the
Indo-Pacific region and the Western Hemisphere, to strengthen homeland
defense, to support counter-narcotics and counter-trafficking
operations, and to increase ally and partner burden sharing, and for
other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 21, 2026
Mr. McCormick (for himself and Mr. Fetterman) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed
Services
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require a strategy for the deployment, employment, integration,
exportability, and scaling of unmanned and autonomous systems in the
Indo-Pacific region and the Western Hemisphere, to strengthen homeland
defense, to support counter-narcotics and counter-trafficking
operations, and to increase ally and partner burden sharing, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Unmanned and Autonomous Systems
Strategy Act of 2026''.
SEC. 2. STRATEGY FOR DEPLOYMENT OF UNMANNED AND AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN
INDO-PACIFIC REGION AND WESTERN HEMISPHERE.
(a) In General.--The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the
officials specified in subsection (b), shall develop a strategy for the
deployment, employment, integration, sustainment, exportability, and
scaling of unmanned and autonomous systems in the Indo-Pacific region
and the Western Hemisphere.
(b) Specified Officials.--The officials specified in this
subsection are the following:
(1) The Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific
Command.
(2) The Commander of the United States Southern Command.
(3) The Commander of the United States Northern Command.
(4) The Commandant of the Coast Guard.
(5) The head of the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.
(6) The Secretary of State.
(7) The Secretary of Homeland Security.
(8) The Secretaries of the military departments.
(9) Any other United States Government official the
Secretary of Defense considers appropriate.
(c) Elements.--The strategy required by subsection (a) shall
include the following:
(1) An assessment of current capability gaps and
operational requirements with respect to the deployment of
unmanned and autonomous systems within the areas of
responsibility of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, the
United States Southern Command, and the United States Northern
Command, including with respect to--
(A) persistent maritime, air, littoral, and
undersea domain awareness;
(B) undersea surveillance and anti-submarine
warfare;
(C) long-range strike and attritable systems;
(D) integration of artificial intelligence and
decoy operations;
(E) counter-unmanned systems operations;
(F) logistics and communications relay;
(G) electronic warfare and signals intelligence
collection;
(H) mine detect and defeat; and
(I) United States homeland security missions to
counter narcotics, trafficking, and transnational
criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere,
including such missions in support of maritime
interdiction and detection-and-monitoring operations.
(2) An assessment of the scope of unmanned and autonomous
systems that may be deployed across, air, surface, and
subsurface domains in the Indo-Pacific region and the Western
Hemisphere, including--
(A) an identification of--
(i) unmanned aircraft systems;
(ii) small, medium, large, and extra-large
unmanned surface vessels;
(iii) undersea vehicles, including remotely
operated and autonomous such vehicles; and
(iv) unmanned and autonomous systems
platform attributes;
(B) the numbers of unmanned and autonomous systems,
unmanned undersea vehicles available for such
deployment, including remotely operated and autonomous
vehicles; and
(C) for each system identified under subparagraph
(A)--
(i) an evaluation of capability for
artificial intelligence integration and
autonomy-enabled software;
(ii) operational range, time-on-station,
payload capacity, autonomy levels, and
survivability; and
(iii) associated launch and recovery
systems, control stations, communications
links, sensors, payloads, and modular mission
packages, and other operationally relevant
performance parameters.
(3) An identification of prospective basing, staging, and
forward deployment locations for UAS and UUV systems within the
areas of responsibility of the United States Indo-Pacific
Command, the United States Southern Command, and the United
States Northern Command, including an assessment of--
(A) existing United States military installations
and their capacity to support unmanned systems
operations and long-term storage of such systems;
(B) partner country facilities and agreements
necessary to enable forward deployment; and
(C) at-sea and submarine-launched deployment
concepts.
(4) An evaluation of the maturity and demonstrated
operational suitability of endurance-enabling propulsion
technologies, including hybrid-electric propulsion, with
attention to efficiency, reliability, acoustic performance, and
sustainment considerations.
(5) A plan for cross-domain integration of UAS and UUV
systems into the broader joint force, including enhancement of
conventional weapon systems, manned platforms, artificial
intelligence systems, and command-and-control networks.
(6) A summary of ongoing experimentation, prototyping, and
operational demonstrations, including lessons learned from use
by the United States Indo-Pacific Command and the United States
Special Operations Command.
(7) A plan for co-design, co-development, co-production,
and interoperability of unmanned systems with allies and
partners, with particular emphasis on--
(A) Australia, Israel, Japan, the Republic of
Korea, Taiwan, and Ukraine; and
(B) partners under the Advanced Capabilities pillar
of the AUKUS partnership.
(8) An assessment of adversary unmanned systems
capabilities and counter-unmanned systems threats, and
recommendations for measures to ensure survivability and
mission effectiveness of United States and allied unmanned
systems.
(9) A resource and procurement plan identifying near-term,
mid-term, and long-term investments in UAS and UUV programs
required to execute such strategy, including an identification
of programs of record, rapid acquisition pathways, scalability
and manufacturability, supply chain vulnerabilities, and
commercial off-the-shelf options.
(10) A plan for addressing supply chain dependencies and
vulnerabilities for UAS and UUV systems, consistent with the
requirements of the American Security Drone Act of 2023 (Public
Law 118-31; 137 Stat. 691; 41 U.S.C. note prec. 3901), as
applicable, to ensure that United States military unmanned
systems are not dependent on components manufactured by
entities subject to the influence or control of a covered
foreign entity.
(11) Metrics and milestones for measuring the
implementation and effectiveness of the strategy.
(d) Submission to Congress.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to
the congressional defense committees (as defined in section 101 of
title 10, United States Code) the strategy developed under subsection
(a).
(e) Briefing.--Not later than 1 year after the date on which the
strategy required by subsection (a) is submitted, and annually
thereafter through 2030, the Secretary of Defense shall provide the
congressional defense committees with a briefing on--
(1) the status of implementation of the strategy;
(2) any changes in adversary unmanned systems capabilities
or operational behavior that affect the strategy;
(3) progress on allied and partner co-development and
interoperability initiatives;
(4) procurements, deployments, and exercises conducted in
furtherance of the strategy; and
(5) any recommended updates or modifications to the
strategy.
(f) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Covered foreign entity.--The term ``covered foreign
entity'' has the meaning given that term in section 1822 of the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (Public
Law 118-31; 10 U.S.C. 4661 note).
(2) Unmanned aircraft system; uas.--The terms ``unmanned
aircraft system'' and ``UAS'' mean an unmanned aircraft and
associated elements, including communication links and the
components that control the unmanned aircraft, in accordance
with section 44801 of title 49, United States Code.
(3) Unmanned undersea vehicle; uuv.--The terms ``unmanned
undersea vehicle'' and ``UUV'' mean an unmanned, self-propelled
vehicle that operates below the surface of the water, including
remotely operated vehicles and autonomous undersea vehicles.
<all>