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Watch Swarm of Land-Based and Airborne Autonomous Drones Conduct Military Drills

OFFSET drones ready for their mission 1 photo
Photo: DARPA
Imagine having to go up against the U.S. military in the near future. You’re hunkered down in a cellar somewhere, lost between some city’s buildings, just waiting for the GI Joes to step into your line of fire.
Only you’re dead long before that happens, tracked down by a swarm of autonomous drones and expertly shot from a safe distance by American troops.

That’s a scenario that just may become a reality, should DARPA’s OFFSET program go as planned.

OFFSET stands for OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics, and it simply means swarms of autonomous air and ground robots locating, isolating and securing a target in an urban environment. While they do this, small ground military units can move in for the kill.

On Wednesday (August 7) DARPA published a video of an OFFSET test it conducted back in June at the Selby Combined Arms Collective Training Facility in Fort Benning, Georgia. And the images are terrifying.

An undisclosed number of drones, arranged in military formation, take off or drive off in search of their target. For 30 minutes, they tested their tactics in locating a target in a mock urban environment.

This test was the second in a series of six that will be conducted in the coming years. The goal is to one day have swarms of 250 drones helping combat units on the ground.

DARPA didn’t say when a fully operational swarm could be ready.

“The pace of our scheduled experiments requires our performers to take risks” said in a statement Timothy Chung, the OFFSET program manager.

“Rapid integration demands that our swarm teams, both integrators and sprinters, develop smarter ways to improve their current processes.”

Drones are a crucial component of DARPA’s current activities. Earlier in July, the organization demonstrated how artificial intelligence systems could work with U.S. Marines in simulated battle scenarios.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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