2024-01-11 06:03:00
Shield AI’s V-BAT drones can now evolve autonomously in the form of a swarm and continue their mission by adapting it to deal with detected threats or requirements.
This will also interest you
[EN VIDÉO] The US army is testing a squadron of 103 autonomous mini-drones In the United States, the Department of Defense successfully tested a group of 103…
With its tube pointed towards the sky and its two large wings placed at the bottom on a motorized support, the V-Bat from Shield AI looks funny. A prototype of this drone was tested this summer in Florida by the US Navy. L’aéronefaéronef is capable of taking off and landing vertically from a ship, then moving horizontally. Placing a drone on a ship remains a delicate operation, especially for military devices which weigh much more than civilian drones, but this is not the only quality of the V-BAT which is now produced in series. The drone has a range of 560 kilometers for 10 hours of autonomy and a vitessevitesse peak of 165 km/h. Its maximum altitude is 4,500 meters.
This is not a lurking munition, but a surveillance drone. For this, it can carry 8 kilos of payload to have sensorssensors, communication systems. It can also be equipped with an electronic jamming system. The advantage of the V-Bat’s particular architecture is that it allows it to be easily stored on a ship. It also takes only five minutes to assemble it and send it with its flight data for an autonomous mission. But the big news, in addition to its other capabilities, is that the aircraft can now evolve in the form of a swarm thanks to theIAIA Hivemind.
The drone can carry out its missions in packs autonomously thanks to on-board AI. © Shield AI
A swarm of autonomous drones
Managed by an Nvidia processor, the Hivemind AI interfaces directly with the V-BAT autopilot. The operator can instruct the drone to perform a specific task, such as searching an area for a target, for example. Then, without needing GPS, it is from the mapping and data from its sensors that the cognitive engine of the drone will then develop the best mission plan to accomplish this mission. Better yet, this work can be done in a coordinated manner with several V-BATs.
With this AI, drones can continue to fly and carry out their mission autonomously in groups in very degraded and confused conditions. A large swarm of drones can then be used to lure the enemy in order to saturate and exhaust their defenses by making them fire costly missilesmissilesbefore a real vaguevague air attack.
For the moment, the objective for 2024 is to operationalize a group of four V-BATs to ultimately double this number. With its characteristics, the drone falls within the specifications of the Replicator program of the American army. Faced with the threat of an invasion of Taiwan by Chinese forces, it consists of having a volumevolume consequent number of drones capable of evolving in swarms.
1705232460
#VBAT #strange #American #military #drone #flies #swarms
