GPS World, December 2017

DEFENSEUPDATE D ARPAs 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 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 technologydevelopment 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 environmentand 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 DARPAs Tactical Technology Office TTO By having swarm sprints at regular intervals were able to ensure that were 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 were interested in were looking for wherever those innovative solutions are going to come from whether they be small businesses academic institutions or large corporations DARPA Sprints toward Swarming Image credit DARPA 2 166 GYDQFHG WHFKQRORJ WR PDNH RX ZRUU IUHH Smart design maximum productivity WIFI Connection Realizes WebUI control which is designed to modify settings and monitor the receiver status Incline Measuring Get the right point data by automatic correct system with the pole tilted in 30 A90 cutting edge RTK Receiver Smart design maximum productivity Professional GNSS Engine Android field software bundled Incline Measuring Get the right point data by automatic correct system with the pole tilted in 30 WIFI Connection Realizes WebUI control which is designed to modify settings and monitor the receiver status Multiple communication modules Bluetooth Radio 3G standard A60 Smart GNSS Receiver dZ_ TV SUZHOU FOIF CO LTD Its professional www foif com DECEMBER 2017 WWW GPSWORLD COM GPS WORLD 45