Air Force scientists and weapons developers are
making progress developing swarms of mini-drones engineered with algorithms
which enable them to coordinate with one another and avoid collisions.
Senior Air Force officials have said that the precise roles and missions
for this type of technology are still in the process of being determined;
however, experts and analyst are already discussing numerous potential
applications for the technology.
Swarms of drones could cue one another and be able to blanket an area
with sensors even if one or two get shot down. The technology could be designed
for high threat areas building in strategic redundancy, Air Force Chief
Scientist Gregory Zacharias told Scout Warrior in an interview.
Groups of coordinated small drones could also be used to confuse enemy
radar systems and overwhelm advanced enemy air defenses by providing so many
targets that they cannot be dealt with all at once, he said.
Zacharias explained that perhaps one small drone can be programmed to
function as a swarm leader, with others functioning as ISR (intelligence,
surveillance, reconnaissance) platforms, munitions or communications devices.
He also said there is great strategic and tactical value in operating a swarm
of small drones which, when needed, can disperse.
"Do you want them to fly in formation for a while and then
disaggregate to get through the radar and then reaggregate and go to a target?
They can jam an enemy radar or not even be seen by them because they are too
small. The idea is to dissagregate so as not to be large expensive targets. In
this way if you lose one you still may have 100 more," he explained.
An area of scientific inquiry now being explored for swarms of drones is
called "bio-memetics," an approach which looks at the swarming of
actual live animals -- such as flocks of birds or insects -- as a way to
develop algorithms for swarming mini-drone flight, Zacharias added.
"It turns out you can use incredibly simple rules for formation
flight of a large flock. It really just takes a few simple rules. If you think
of each bird or bee as an agent, it can do really simple things such as
determine its position relative to the three nearest objects to it. It is very
simple guidance and control stuff," Zacharias said.
Also, small groups of drones operating together could function as
munitions or weapons delivery technology. A small class of mini-drone
weapons already exist, such as AeroVironment’s Switchblade drone designed to
deliver precision weapons effects. The weapon, which can reach distances
up to 10 kilometers, is engineered as a low-cost expendable munition loaded
with sensors and munitions.
Air Force plans for new drones are part of a new service strategy to be
explained in a paper released last year called “autonomous horizons.” Air
Force strategy also calls for greater manned-unmanned teaming between drones
and manned aircraft such as F-35s. This kind of effort could help facilitate
what Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said about mini-drones launching from
a high-speed fighter jet.
In the future, fighter aircraft such as the F-35 or an F-22 may be able
to control drones themselves from the cockpit to enhance missions by carrying
extra payload, extending a surveillance area or delivering weapons, Air Force
scientists have said.
Zacharias explained this in terms of developments within the field of
artificial intelligence. This involves faster computer processing technology
and algorithms which allow computers to increasingly organize and integrate
information by themselves - without needing human intervention. Human will
likely operate in a command and control capacity with computers picking the
sensing, integration and organization of data, input and various kinds of material.
As autonomy increases, the day when multiple drones can be controlled by a
single aircraft, such as a fighter jet, is fast approaching.
Drones would deliver weapons, confront the risk of enemy air defenses or
conduct ISR missions flying alongside manned aircraft, Zacharias
explained.
Pentagon
Effort
The Pentagon is in the early phases of developing swarms of mini-drones
able launch attacks, jam enemy radar, confuse enemy air defenses and conduct
wide-ranging surveillance missions, officials explained.
The effort, which would bring a new range of strategic and tactical
advantages to the U.S. military, will be focused on as part of a special
Pentagon unit called the Strategic Capabilities Office, or SCO.
While the office has been in existence for some period of time, it was
publically announced by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during the recent 2017
budget proposal discussions. The new office will, among other things, both
explore emerging technologies and also look at new ways of leveraging existing
weapons and platforms.
Carter said swarming autonomous drones are a key part of this broader
effort to adapt emerging technologies to existing and future warfighting needs.
“Another project uses swarming autonomous vehicles in all sorts of ways
and in multiple domains. In the air, they develop micro-drones that are
really fast, really resistant. They can fly through heavy winds and be
kicked out the back of a fighter jet moving at Mach 0.9, like they did during
an operational exercise in Alaska last year, or they can be thrown into the air
by a soldier in the middle of the Iraqi desert,” Carter said. "And
for the water, they've developed self-driving boats which can network together
to do all kinds of missions, from fleet defense to close-in surveillance, without
putting sailors at risk. Each one of these leverages the wider world of
technology."
Navy Effort
Meanwhile, the Office of Naval Research is also working on
drone-swarming technology through an ongoing effort called Low-Cost Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle Swarming Technology, or LOCUST. This involves groups of small,
tube-launched UAVs designed to swarm and overwhelm adversaries, Navy officials
explained.
“Researchers continue to push the state-of-the-art in autonomy control
and plan to launch 30 autonomous UAVs in 2016 in under a minute,” an ONR
statement said last year.
A demonstration of the technology is planned from a ship called a Sea
Fighter, a high-speed, shallow-water experimental ship developed by the ONR.
Army Defends
Against Mini-Drones
While swarms of mini-drones clearly bring a wide range of tactical
offensive and defensive advantages, there is also the realistic prospect that
adversaries or potential adversaries could use drone swarms against the U.S.
This is a scenario the services, including the Army in particular, are
exploring.
The Army launched swarms of mini-attack drones against battlefield units
in mock-combat drills as a way to better understand potential threats expected
in tomorrow’s conflicts, service officials said.
Pentagon threat assessment officials have for quite some time expressed
concern that current and future enemies of the U.S. military might seek to use
massive swarms of mini-drones to blanket an area with surveillance cameras, jam
radar signals, deliver weapons or drop small bombs on military units.
As a result, the Army Test and Evaluation Command put these scenarios to
the test in the desert as part of the service’s Network Integration Evaluation,
or NIE, at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
The mini-drones used were inexpensive, off-the-shelf commercial systems
likely to be acquired and used by potential adversaries in future conflict
scenarios.
The drones were configured to carry special payloads for specific
mission functions. Cameras, bomb simulators, expanded battery packs and other
systems will be tested on the aircraft to develop and analyze potential
capabilities of the drones, an Army statement said.
The mini-drones, which included $1000-dollar quadcopters made by 3-D
Robotics, were placed in actual mock-combat scenarios and flown against Army
units in test exercises.
“Acting as a member of the opposing force, the drones will be used for
short-range missions, and for flooding the airspace to generate disruptive
radar signatures. They will also be used as a kind of spotter, using simple
video cameras to try and locate Soldiers and units,” an Army statement from
before the exercise said.
There were also plans to fit the drones with the ability to drop packets
of flour, simulating the ability for the swarm to drop small bombs, allowing
the drones to perform short-range strike missions, the Army statement said.
"Right now there's hardly anyone doing swarms, most people
are flying one, maybe two, but any time you can get more than one or two in the
air at the same time, and control them by waypoint with one laptop, that's
important," James Story, an engineer with the Targets Management Office,
Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, said in
a statement last Fall. "You're controlling all five of them, and all five
of them are a threat."
Kris Osborn became the Managing Editor of Scout Warrior in
August of 2015. His role with Scout.com includes managing content on the Scout
Warrior site and generating independently sourced original material. Scout
Warrior is aimed at providing engaging, substantial military-specific content
covering a range of key areas such as weapons, emerging or next-generation
technologies and issues of relevance to the military. Just prior to coming to
Scout Warrior, Osborn served as an Associate Editor at the Military.com. This
story originally appeared in Scout Warrior.
Image: Lockheed
Martin
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