SWARM UAV – Designing a Small,Very Low Cost, HighEndurance,Highly Capable UAV for the Current Navy

摘要

The general swarm concept, I.e. the ability to use relatively large numbers ofautonomous vehicles for a militarily useful function, relies upon the availability of very lowcost, highly capable UAVs. The SWARM UAV was conceived, designed, built, and tested at theNaval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division (NSWCCD) specifically to meet theserequirements and to meet the operational constraints that would be imposed by current andfuture Navy combatants. The cost goal for acomplete vehicle (consisting of heavy fuel engine,on-board power system, autonomous navigation, command & control, and a cryptocommunicationssystem) was set at $2,000 each in production. The most important aspect inthe process was “design to cost” andaccept the performance constraints that this processimposed. All subsystems in SWARM UAV were all designed to be totally modular. Most ofthese subsystems were developed under contract using the US Navy’s Small BusinessInnovation Research (SBIR) program. By setting aggressive cost goals for each subsystem,contractors were encouraged to pursue creative solutions. This developmental approach was aresounding success, with most subsystems exceeding expected performance while maintainingtheir cost target for final production. These subsystems have been used to construct a numberof variants of the SWARM UAV. The results of the integration efforts of these technologies intoa SWARM UAV variant are described.