DARPA moves forward on plan to develop swarms of cooperating drones

摘要

U.S. Air Force researchers are moving forward with a project to use C-130 aircraft to launch swarms of networked and cooperating unmanned aircraft for electronic attack and reconnaissance missions from standoff ranges. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, announced a $3.9 million contract to the Composite Engineering Unmanned Systems Division in Sacramento Calif., for the first phase of the Gremlins program, which relies on relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial ve- hicles (UAVs) in volley quantities to saturate enemy defenses.