GPS World

Tag: OFFSET

  • Raytheon swarm enables one operator to guide 100+ drones

    Raytheon swarm enables one operator to guide 100+ drones

    Raytheon BBN-led team recently supported DARPA's fifth OFFSET program field exercise. (Photo: Raytheon)
    Raytheon BBN-led team recently supported DARPA’s fifth OFFSET program field exercise. (Photo: Raytheon)

    Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon Technologies business, recently supported the fifth OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) DARPA program field exercise.

    Using integrated swarm technology developed by a Raytheon BBN-led team, a single operator successfully controlled a swarm — composed of 130 physical drone platforms and 30 simulated drone platforms — both indoors and outdoors in an urban setting. Raytheon BBN provides advanced technology research and development with a focus on national security priorities.

    During the exercise, the team used a combination of commercial off-the-shelf and custom-built hardware and software to deliver swarm autonomy. This enabled a single or small group of operators to direct and manage the activities of a large swarm of autonomous air and ground vehicles with minimal training.

    “Controlling a drone swarm changes the way an operator or group of operators think about the drones,” said Shane Clark, Raytheon BBN OFFSET principal investigator. “Takeaways from this exercise help inform us of the inflection points between utility and manageability.”

    Inexpensive Hardware

    A key element of the program is the use of inexpensive hardware. Without the powerful computing and sensing capabilities available in larger more expensive platforms, Raytheon BBN needed to create a broad library of simple tactic building blocks used to create plans to accomplish mission objectives.

    Raytheon BBN also designed and configured a scalable, modular and decentralized approach to manage a variety of current and future platforms and missions. Whenever possible, the drones collaborate actively to decide how to accomplish a specific mission most efficiently.

    “Our software is smart enough to assign drones with the right capabilities to the appropriate set of tasks,” Clark said. “For example, if the task is to surveil a building, multiple drones will be dispatched, with each surveilling portions of the building. The software considers each platform’s sensor capabilities, and tasks drones with downward-facing cameras to surveil the roof.”

    Once the drones are deployed, their collaboration allows them to understand what parts of a building have been explored and where the gaps are. They then autonomously select how to fill in those gaps.

    Virtual Reality Interface

    To tackle the complexities of human swarm interfaces, the Raytheon BBN team created a virtual reality interface in addition to traditional camera views. It takes feeds from all the swarm assets to create an interactive virtual view of the environment.

    “You can look behind the building to access a view of drone locations, for example, and use the virtual reality environment to test and see if your mission is viable,” Clark said. “We also developed a speech interface with the operationally deployed Tactical Assault Kit, or TAK, integration capability that enables the operator to act quickly while maintaining situational awareness over many systems simultaneously.”

    The Raytheon BBN-led team includes Smart Information Flow Technologies, or SIFT, and Oregon State University. The team is contracted by DARPA to demonstrate its swarm capabilities during Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment 2022 taking place in February to March, and hosted by the Army Maneuver Battle Lab.

  • DARPA sprints toward unmanned air and ground swarming

    DARPA sprints toward unmanned air and ground swarming

    DARPA’s OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program envisions future small-unit infantry forces using small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or small unmanned ground systems (UGS) in swarms of 250 robots or more to accomplish diverse missions in complex urban environments.

    By leveraging and combining emerging technologies in swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming, the program seeks to enable rapid development and deployment of breakthrough capabilities to the field.

    DARPA has awarded Phase 1 contracts to teams led by Raytheon BBN Technologies and Northrop Grumman Corporation.

    Image: DARPA
    Image: DARPA

    Swarm Tactics. Both teams will serve as a swarm systems integrators tasked with designing, developing and deploying an open architecture for swarm technologies in physical and virtual environments.

    Each system would include an extensible game-based architecture to enable design and integration of swarm tactics, a swarm tactics exchange to foster community interaction, immersive interfaces for collaboration among teams of humans and swarm systems, and a physical testbed to validate developed capabilities.

    The teams will be responsible for experimentation and systems-integration efforts for realizing swarm capabilities, including producing tactics and technologies to test on its respective architecture.

    Swarm Sprints. DARPA also aims to engage with a wider developer and user audience through rapid technology-development and integration efforts called swarm sprints. Participants in these experiments — sprinters — can work with one or both integration teams and each other to create and test their own novel swarm tactics and enabling technologies.

    Roughly every six months, DARPA plans to solicit proposals from potential sprinters, with each swarm sprint focusing on one of five thrust areas: swarm tactics, swarm autonomy, human-swarm teaming, virtual environment and physical testbed.

    The end of each sprint would coincide with physical and virtual capability-based experiments designed to test and assess integration of the thrust-specific OFFSET technologies. The experiments would also provide direct engagement between DARPA, the teams and sprinters, and warfighters who could help further tailor OFFSET capabilities to meet real-world operational needs.

    “The swarm sprints are empirical experiments designed to accelerate our understanding of what swarms can do in urban environments,” said Timothy Chung, program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. “By having swarm sprints at regular intervals, we’re able to ensure that we’re keeping up with the latest technologies — and are in fact helping inform and advance those technologies — to better suit the needs of the OFFSET program. Given the wide range of capabilities that we’re interested in, we’re looking for wherever those innovative solutions are going to come from, whether they be small businesses, academic institutions or large corporations.”