Drone swarms are proving a powerful and effective tool for militaries wanting to improve visibility and control while reducing risks and casualties.
What is a Drone Swarm?
Swarms are an inherent part of nature. Wasps, bees, locusts, and birds – their swarming together an act of protection designed to protect the flock – form a mass intelligence that has long been a fundamental part of nature’s defensive strategy. A drone swarm is the use of autonomous clusters of drones within a ‘swarm’ designed to provide intelligence, protection, and control in military operations.
What are Drone Swarms Used For?
Drones are capable of assessing targets, scanning areas for safety, and providing aerial support on their own, but when drones are incorporated into a swarm, their intelligence increases exponentially, allowing for impressive gains across surveillance and combat. As a study undertaken in 2018 found, swarming drones have the potential to increase the lethality of drone attacks by as much as 50% while reducing the loss of drones to enemy fire by the same amount.
The impact of those percentages would be keenly felt by military precision and budgets.
Military Drone Swarm Market
According to MarketsandMarkets, the swarm intelligence market is expected to reach a value of $447.2 million by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.47%. That’s an impressive growth percentage, one that MarketsandMarkets believes is driven by the use of drone swarms to gather intelligence, solve big data problems, and find smart solutions to pervasive problems. Drone swarm technology is also being used to revolutionize tactics, boost military capabilities, and reduce risks.
The Intelligence Behind Drone Swarming Technology
Swarm intelligence is essentially the ability of drones to mimic the behaviors of animals and insects to follow a series of rules that allow for increasingly intelligent capabilities and efficiencies. In nature, the bees all know the overarching goal, and the birds all know where they are going – they work in tandem to achieve these goals. Military drones are directed to a location by their operator, and then the swarm intelligence dictates how they perform the job they need to do. It’s a blend of human and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve decision-making and reduce the manual burden on operators as they manage multiple environments or situations simultaneously.
The different types of analytical models used to drive these swarms also play a role in their effectiveness and applications. The most common swam intelligence methods are Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Honeybee Mating Optimization (HMO), Firefly Algorithm (FA), and Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm (SFLA).
How Does Swarm Intelligence Work?
The algorithms listed above keep the drone swarm hive mind on track by following three central rules: Separate, Align, and Cohere. These are the three rules outlined by Craig Reynolds, an AI expert in the 1980s, who created simulations based on swarming behaviors. Applying these rules to drone swarms in the military has several implications. These include the ability for large groups of drones to intelligently maintain a set minimum distance from one another (separate), aim towards the same average heading at the same speed (align), and remain in position with one another so the group remains cohesive (cohere).
Intelligent Attention: The Evolution in Innovation of Military Swarm Drones
The potential of drone-swarming technology hasn’t been lost on the market. Leaders that include Maris-Tech, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, vHive Tech, and Panasonic have prioritized drone swarm innovation and technology, and, according to GlobalData, there are more than 60 vendors in this sector, all focused on development and applications in this niche. Over the past few years, there have been some interesting announcements regarding drone swarms in warfare that include:
- Icarus Swarms released a new product at CES in 2021 that can deploy up to 50 drones simultaneously.
- Russian Aerospace Forces – a solution developed in Kronstadt focused on drone swarms for use by the Russian military with the ability to use high-precision guided munitions.
- Escribano Mechanical & Engineering – also in 2021, this company received a contract from the Spanish Ministry of Defence to develop an autonomous drone swarm solution for Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) requirements.
- Blue Bear Systems – a 20-drone swarm solution that offers multiple payload and integration capabilities.
- Paramount Advanced Technologies — In 2021, the company revealed the N-Raven system, which offered autonomous vehicles powered by swarm technologies designed to achieve a variety of mission parameters.
- Shield AI – the company revealed a new drone swarm capability they’ve called V-Bat Teams using an AI called Hivemind. It can operate autonomously in high-threat situations without needing GPS or communication instructions.
- China – the South China Morning Post announced the launch of a drone capable of splitting into multiple smaller drones to provide tactical support and swarm intelligence capabilities.
- Replicator – less a drone and more a strategy, Replicator is the US Department of Defense’s approach to create cheap drones en mass that allow for quick and immediate support in battle.
- Hive Brain – this partnership between Red Cat Holdings and Sentien Robotics is focused on scaling up the number of drones that Red Cat can launch at the same time while enhancing intelligence and capabilities.
Trends Shaping Swarm Intelligence for Drones
The Commercial UAV News report released at the end of 2023 highlighted seven trends set to influence the drone swarming sector throughout 2024 and beyond. The first is, of course, artificial intelligence in drone swarms. There is no drone swarm without the intelligence of the algorithms behind it. It’s a sentiment echoed in a recent article from DefenseOne that unpacked how AI-powered drones deliver surprising results, not just in enhancing autonomous warfare.
The second trend is counter-drone systems and planning – there’s a need to improve counter-drone investments because the technologies evolve, so does the risk. Neutralizing these intelligent targets is becoming as much a priority as creating them. Regulatory changes, ethics, and security are other core priorities for companies and countries. From assessing how these drones will remain secure from external hackers attempting to gain control to managing the ethical implications of their development, conversations need to be had as the technology evolves.
The swarming capabilities of drones also require a focus on how to create drones at scale. They’re expensive to manufacture and costly to program so how can scale be managed to ensure efficacy and value without compromising on integrity? In the military, this is also balanced by the need to mitigate costs to the country while remaining ahead of security.
Operating A Swarm of Drones in the Military with AI-Edge Video and Analytic Technologies
Drone swarms have rapidly become essential in military operations. Offering the ability to revolutionize tactics, enhance capabilities, and mitigate risks, advanced warfare drone swarms work together as unified teams to overpower enemies with sheer numbers and coordinated actions, acting as a force multiplier.
With a proven track record of partnering with leading organizations worldwide, Maris-Tech is at the forefront of developing AI-edge video and analytics technologies specifically for defense applications. These cutting-edge solutions are wedded with expertise and reliability, allowing companies to innovate across a broad spectrum of platforms and applications, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with drone technology. With its AI computing and ultra-low-latency streaming solutions, Maris-Tech has the tools companies need to innovate and advance the performance and effectiveness of drone swarms in modern military operations. For more information, contact Maris-Tech and discover the trends made real.
