(Image courtesy of US Department of Defense.)
So, it should come as no surprise the US Department of Defense (DoD) has announced that it has completed micro-drone/F-18 release tests that demonstrated how swarms of drones can work in concert with manned jets.
While drones of many stripes are proliferating across both civilian and military airspace, the DoD is working with a particular model of drone named Perdix. The Perdix bot is an autonomous micro drone being developed by the defense department’s Strategic Capabilities Office and MIT’s Lincoln Lab for use in ground, air and sea operations. The device itself is miniscule, having only a 11.6 inch wingspan, a 290-gram total weight, a 40-60 knot top speed and an endurance window under 20 minutes. Nevertheless, these drones can become effective military machinery when used in groups.
During the test, the mircodrone swarms demonstrated the ability to make collective decisions, adapt their flying formation to meet mission criteria and even repair themselves when damaged. While those attributes are impressive enough on their own, the most awe-inspiring aspect of the Predix machines is that they are able to make decisions on their own after being given an outline of goals to accomplish.
“Due to the complex nature of combat, Perdix are not pre-programmed synchronized individuals, they are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature," explained SCO Director William Roper. "Because every Perdix communicates and collaborates with every other Perdix, the swarm has no leader and can gracefully adapt to drones entering or exiting the team."
Even though the Predix drone is already displaying a sophisticated degree of autonomy, further generations of the system will need to be developed before it enters full service. Even then, the DoD doesn’t expect Predix drones will ever be full autonomous. As of now the military is more comfortable keeping a human in the loop.