Jane Edwards
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced two awardees for the third sprint of the OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics program and begun to seek proposals for the fourth sprint.
Soar Technology and Carnegie Mellon University received separate contracts to perform work under the OFFSET program’s third sprint, which aims to explore new human-swarm teaming technologies, DARPA said Monday.
DARPA will accept proposals through May 1 for the fourth sprint, which seeks to develop synthetic platforms in virtual environments and determine artificial intelligence applications to identify new swarm tactics.
"With OFFSET, we are expanding the tactics available to warfighters, leveraging advances in autonomous systems to address complex challenges in urban environments," said Timothy Chung, program manager at DARPA’s tactical technology office.
The launch of the fourth sprint came five months after DARPA announced the awardees on the OFFSET program’s second sprint to develop technology capabilities in swarm autonomy.
OFFSET seeks to use swarms of up to 250 autonomous systems designed to provide ground military units with capabilities as they face communications, maneuverability and sensing challenges in urban environments due to limited sight lines, tall buildings and tight spaces.
