Watch UK’s Largest Evaluation of Swarming Drones 

Watch UK’s Largest Evaluation of Swarming Drones 

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The UK has been accelerating its military capabilities in drone swarming. A swarm of 20 drones of five different types has been flown in the largest evaluation of a military-focused Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) swarm in the UK to date. The move was dubbed the UK’s most complex autonomous air vehicle trial ever.

The test represents the culmination of a project by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), expected to advance the understanding of the capabilities of swarming drones. The project is part of a collaboration between the UK Ministry of Defense agencies and a number of Small and Medium Enterprise partners. 

The evaluation saw 220 sorties flown over two weeks from a RAF installation, according to airforce-technology.com.

Following two earlier phases, a £2.5m contract was awarded to further develop the technology in 2019. Funding was awarded to a team led by Blue Bear Systems Research.

The swarm saw five different fixed-wing drones carrying six different payloads fly representative missions under the control of just three operators using Blue Bear’s Mobile Command & Control System (MCCS).

To reduce operator burden, a number of the UAVs were running Blue Bear’s Artificial Intelligence platform (BBAI) which processed sensor data on the aircraft before transmitting relevant information to ground controllers.