7 November 2024

Using drone swarms with manoeuvre units

Marius Halsør, Dan Helge Bentsen, Aleksander Skjerlie Simonsen & Håvard Stien

Introduction

With drones playing an increasingly important part on the battlefield, it is important to examine how we best can use such assets - as well as what we need to do when we face such a threat ourselves. The simplest drones operate individually and are remote controlled, usually requiring one person (at least) to operate one drone. A more advanced utilization of drones involve swarms, consisting of many drones working together. This requires the drones to have some level of autonomy, in order to make it possible for one operator to control the entire swarm. What kind of autonomy is required to operate swarms of different sizes, how such swarms should be used to give the best impact on the battlefield, and how an operator best can control such swarms, are questions we address in this report.

FFIs project "Future Force" examines how unmanned systems may be used in future conflicts. FFI is also developing our own technology for using unmanned systems, which is showcased at annual experiments called LandX. See [1] for the experiment carried out in 2022, where uncrewed systems were the main focus. Among the things FFI is developing, is a drone swarm behaviour system and user interface. See [2] for a description of the Flamingo UAV. Our intention has been to support the development of this technology, and also to study how a swarm of small drones can be used to support a military unit on low tactical level.

No comments: