With futuristic swarm tech, DRDO aims to be force multiplier in emerging asymmetric warfare scenarios

By Rajnish Singh
Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh), November 18 The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is currently working on futuristic swarm technologies with state-of-the-art capabilities which will be a force multiplier in emerging asymmetric warfare scenarios.
The capability demonstration came during a three-day ongoing 'Rashtra Raksha Samarpan Parv' event organised by the Ministry of Defence in coordination with the Uttar Pradesh government here in Jhansi as part of the countrywide celebrations to mark the 75th year of Independence.
The DRDO showcased the indigenous capability to carry out offensive missions in enemy territory with scores of drones working in assorted formations to identify, encircle and strike targets, with the loitering munitions being developed to meet a key military requirement and keep soldiers out of harm's way.
In a statement, the DRDO said "Young Scientist Laboratory for Asymmetric Technologies is currently working on Futuristic swarm technologies with state-of-the-art capabilities which will be a force multiplier in emerging Asymmetric warfare scenarios".
The DRDO demonstrated a fully operational decentralized Unmanned Aerial Vechicle (UAV) swarm comprising of 25 drones flying coherently with minimal human intervention to showcase various unique capabilities like distributive sensing, distributive decision making, reconfigurable path planning and autonomous attack formations.
The developed swarm algorithms are unique and have advanced features which are arguably niche and distinctive in the industry.
The drone of UAVs formed various crucial formations to demonstrate its distinctive capabilities to enact real-time scenarios like target encirclement and coordinated attack.
As soon as the target is detected, the DRDO said a mission command is given to drones to surround the target.
"All the drones take off to form a 5 x 5 matrix. Odd and even rows split to demonstrate dynamic reconfigurability of swarm," DRDO said.
The 'Rashtra Raksha Samarpan Parv' event, which was inaugurated by Union defence minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, focuses on achieving self-reliance in the defence sector, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hand over locally produced military hardware, including the light combat helicopter, drones and electronic warfare systems, to the armed forces on Friday on the culmination day of the event.
A DRDO official told ANI that Symatric Technologies and Scientist Laboratories, which was established two years back as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi desire.
"The swarm technology which we demonstrated is decentralized swarm technology which is very high-tech and advance. It has got a distributed sensing. It has got intelligence on board among the areal agents to detect the incoming targets. The objective is to hit the target with the highest probability of success," said the official.
"Swarm technology is a true force multiplication. We started this project one year back and we have identified the key areas where this technology is really going to be useful for the forces."
From plank formation to swarm ability to collaborate to form a wall for target obstruction was also demonstrated during the event.
Another DRDO official said the swarm has the state of the art decentralized intelligence wherein all the agents are intelligent to reconfigure attack formations in case of addition and deletion of any agent.
"The swarm algorithms are built to act as a real force multiplier where a single operator can launch multiple clusters of drones as mission requirements," said the official.
The swarm has built-in advanced safety and security features such as operator override in case of emergency, encrypted algorithms with Electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) capability for anti-jamming and Non-ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) communication for a low footprint.
ECCM is a part of electronic warfare which includes a variety of practices that attempt to reduce or eliminate the effect of electronic countermeasures on electronic sensors aboard vehicles, ships and aircraft and weapons such as missiles.
The DRDO developed swarm intelligence has an inherent capability of scaling up to 100 to 1000 numbers. Testing for more than 100 numbers launching by a single operator from automated launch containers has been completed.