Army Drone Test Evolves from 'Bee Swarms' to 'Wolf Packs'

The "wolf pack" drone swarm technique deployed during the test simulated a stimulate, hunt, kill, and assess tactic.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 02:32 PM ET

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The move to the "wolf pack" swarms represents an evolution of a previous experiment using a "bee swarm" approach of launching a mass of drones with a collective task. [Courtesy: U.S. Army]

Key Takeaways:

The U.S. Army conducted its largest drone swarming experiment, part of EDGE22, in the Great Salt Lake Desert, testing a new "wolf pack" strategy.
The "wolf pack" approach organizes drones into distinct mission groups (e.g., reconnaissance, hunt, kill, assess) to overcome bandwidth and algorithmic limitations experienced with previous "bee swarm" methods.
The experiment involved four waves of seven drones, utilizing Air Launched Effects (ALE) such as ALTIUS 600 and Coyote for tasks including detection, identification, and reporting of enemy positions.
Lessons from this demonstration will advance ALE swarming behaviors, aiming to extend operational reach and achieve overmatch against adversaries in multi-domain environments.

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A recent U.S. Army drone swarming experiment conducted in the Great Salt Lake Desert organized drones into four “wolf packs,” each with a distinctive mission in what was the largest swarm test ever conducted by the service.

The drone experiment took place at Dugway Proving Ground near Salt Lake City, Utah, as part of the U.S. Army’s 2022 Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise (EDGE22), an annual convening of Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team and nearly 20 units and organizations from across the U.S. Army, industry partners, and international Allies come together to assess new tactics, technologies and interconnecting architectures.