U.S. Army Will Demonstrate Drones That Behave Like a Wolf Pack

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Later this year, U.S. forces will study UAV swarms within Project Convergence, which will be conducted with the Marine Corps and the Army. 

Edge 22 (Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise) will take place in Utah, USA during the current year, and is considered the largest campaign of aviation forces in military exercises involving Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Australia. United States military officials say they’re aware that UAV swarms can behave like insect swarms, but they’re more interested in following the lead of a pack of wolves, defensenews.com reported. 

Among wolves, there is an alpha who heads the pack, while each participant has a defined role according to a hierarchy, so that even when one fails to complete a task, another steps in to fill the void. An UAV swarm is expected to perform a number of new functions, including locating, identifying, determining location, and reporting geographic locations, electronic warfare, joint operations, and joint search with algorithms and patterns, with GPS disruption navigation. Furthermore, UAVs will be equipped with lethality capabilities, which will help them neutralize goals, and additional capabilities that will remain classified. 

In order to formulate desirable features and translate these behaviors into software updates and software update packages for the UAV, the forces plan to examine how a swarm that loses some UAVs will behave. Further, over the course of the exercise, UAVs will be launched from larger aircraft and equipped with sensors or weapons for testing electronic warfare systems during flight, as well as collecting data for testing the aircraft’s tracking capabilities.

Sounds interesting? Discover more interesting innovations at AUS&R 2022 – the Unmanned Systems and Robotics Conference – the tenth annual event, by iHLS.