Pentagon to organize drones in teams for sharing data, fighting together
The Pentagon's research unit is ready to launch a program that unites drones into teams allowing them to share data and act together on a battlefield while being operated by one human. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced that the Proposers' Day for its Collaborative Operations in Denied Environments (CODE) program will be held on April 11. CODE's goal is to unite "autonomy and inter-platform collaboration" of unmanned aerial vehicles.
DARPA intends to develop four "critical technology areas" for its future drones: single-drone flight autonomy; a human-systems interface that allows a "mission commander" to operate a drone fleet; drone-team collaboration; and an "open architecture" that allows drones to pass information between each other and humans.According to DARPA, the CODE project will prepare today's relatively primitive drones for future conflicts, which will be characterized by "a higher level of threats, contested electromagnetic spectrum, and re-locatable targets." DARPA believes that in future, drone technology will be more widespread, and enemies will be more ready to counteract.It was recently reported that DARPA is also doubling funding for its Hydra program, which develops underwater drones. Some of DARPA's other projects include inaudible military vehicles, the ATLAS robot, brain-reading technology and lasers to shoot down multiple enemy drones.
