The exercise was the culmination of the Defence Science and
Technology Laboratory (Dstl)’s ‘Many Drones Make Light
Work’ competition, funded under the MOD’s Science and
Technology Portfolio through the Defence and Security
Accelerator (DASA). Following 2 earlier phases, the £2.5
million contract for Phase 3 was awarded in January 2019.
This was for an Integrated Concept Evaluation activity to
explore the technical feasibility and military utility of a
swarm of up to 20 small UAVs operating collaboratively.
This was awarded to an industry team led by Blue Bear
Systems Research including Plextek DTS, IQHQ, Airbus and
Durham University.
The swarm consisted of 5 different types and sizes of fixed
wing drones together with 6 different payload types, flying
representative tasks at RAF Spadeadam in Cumbria. Three
operators in Blue Bear’s Mobile Command & Control
System (MCCS) managed the entire swarm whilst
simultaneously handling different, collaborative payload
analysis tasks.
The UAVs flew simultaneous Beyond Visual Line Of Sight
(BVLOS) cooperative tasks, with Blue Bear collaborative
autonomy ensuring they all contributed to overall mission
goals. Throughout the 2 weeks of trials, more than 220
sorties were undertaken.
The Dstl Project Technical Authority, said:
Dstl has been driving research in autonomous systems
across different platforms and domains for many years.
This is a significant step forward in our understanding
of the capabilities of swarming drones and has been
achieved through excellent collaboration across the MOD
and with a number of Small and Medium Enterprise
partners. This 18 month collaboration has resulted in the
demonstration of an operationally relevant capability and
will inform and de-risk future choices and decisions
about swarming drone capability.
