Military eyes swarms of drones working
as teams to overwhelm the enemy
Working as a team is a core component of modern military doctrine,
yet what usually comes to mind
first when we ponder the role of unmanned vehicles is the lone wolf,
not members of a team.
Consider the unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) and most likely you’ll
think of a single reconnaissance
drone tracking terrorists or enemy
military forces, or the armed UAV
slipping through enemy defenses quickly and quietly for a surgical
hit-and-run attack.
All that could be changing, because of research initiatives like the
Gremlins program of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va.
The Gremlins program, announced
in September, envisions swarms of
semi-expendable reconnaissance and
electronic warfare (EW) UAVs falling
quickly on an unsuspecting enemy to
overwhelm opposition by suppressing missile defenses, cutting off communications, spoofing internal security, and perhaps even infecting enemy
data networks with computer viruses.
This is all without exposing even
one human aircraft pilot to danger.
Manned aircraft would launch the
drones from platforms like the C-130
utility turboprop or similar military
planes at safe distances outside the
ranges of enemy air defenses and
unleash an onslaught of drones on
the enemy.
The swarming drones envisioned
in the DARPA Gremlins program
would be relatively inexpensive, so
their losses wouldn’t jeopardize missions or impose crippling costs. Still,
Gremlins drones would be sophisticated enough to do real damage to
the enemy, and then be recovered
should they survive the mission.
Host C-130 aircraft would be fitted with special equipment to capture returning drones so they could
fight another day. In fact, the Gremlins drones could be used several
more times — but are not envisioned
for anything other than limited life
cycles. Maybe they could last as long
as 20 missions before being retired.
Think of reusable target drones, and
you have the idea for Gremlins UAVs.
Simply swarming an enemy with
UAVs will be harder than it sounds.
Not only will these drone swarms
overwhelm an enemy, but they
must work together to do it. For capabilities like this, technological
challenges remain to be overcome.
Perhaps the most important is devising effective and secure ad-hoc
wireless networks that would enable UAVs to communicate and co-ordinate their actions.
The contractors chosen to partic-
ipate in the Gremlins program will
confront just such a challenge. These
wireless networks must be adaptable
and self-healing so that when one
drone fails, gets shot down, or crash-
es unexpectedly, then others auto-
matically can assume its responsi-
bilities. No medics will be necessary.
As attrition were to factor in to
Gremlins-like missions, the remain-
ing drones would continue on with
surveillance duties, electronic jam-
ming, communications eavesdrop-
ping, cyber warfare, or other as-
signed tasks. After completing the
mission, surviving drones would
rendezvous at a pre-determined lo-
cation and be recovered by the host
C-130 aircraft. Sneak in, swarm and
overwhelm the enemy, and then
leave. That’s the objective.
DARPA isn’t alone in pursuing
swarming drone technologies; a variety of military agencies are trying to
develop the ability to swarm the enemy with UAVs. There’s the Office of
Naval Research’s LOCUST (Low-Cost
UAV Swarming Technology) program. DARPA is doing similar cooperative UAV work in its Collaborative
Operations in Denied Environment
(CODE) program. The DARPA Gremlins program is one of the latest initiatives, and will help give depth and
focus to military drone swarming research. DARPA wants Gremlins program proposals by November. Í