Angeline Leishman
Raytheon Technologies demonstrated a new capability that enables operators with minimal training to control a large swarm of autonomous air and ground vehicles during a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency field exercise.
An operator managed a combination of 130 physical autonomous platforms and 30 simulated drones in both indoor and outdoor urban settings at DARPA’s fifth OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics event, the company said Monday.
The software relies on a library of simple tactic building blocks and a scalable, modular and decentralized approach to allow drones to collaborate and complete a mission.
The swarm transmits data to operators through traditional camera views and a virtual reality interface to provide them with more information during a mission.
“Takeaways from this exercise help inform us of the inflection points between utility and manageability,” said Shane Clark, Raytheon BBN’s OFFSET principal investigator.
The capability was built by a Raytheon BBN team that includes Smart Information Flow Technologies and Oregon State University.
