Notice

Competition: Many drones make light work phase 3

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is launching Phase 3 of the Many Drones Make Light Work campaign.

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Details

This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition seeks proposals for novel and innovative approaches to developing and evaluating the military utility of a swarm of low-cost, small Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) operating as a collaborative mission capability.

UAS are currently in widespread use with a range of defence and security users around the world. Current operational systems require at least one, but typically two or more operators to either directly pilot the aircraft or to closely manage the mission flown by an individual aircraft as well as manage aircraft sensors.

The ability to employ a swarm of UAS (considered to be 10 to 20 aircraft in the context of this competition) operating in a co-ordinated and closely coupled fashion to achieve a common goal could be of great benefit to defence. This could support lower operating costs, increased system efficiency and effectiveness as well as increased overall system survivability and resilience.

We are seeking proposals that will deliver a structured flight evaluation of an integrated swarming UAS capability. The flight evaluation should provide evidence that supports the military utility and effectiveness of swarming UAS performing credible military tasks in an operationally representative environment.

Total funding of up to £2.5 million is available in Phase 3 to fund 1 or 2 projects.

This competition closes on Wednesday 28 November 2018 at midday.

Queries should be sent to accelerator@dstl.gov.uk.

Updates to this page

Published 18 October 2018
Last updated 14 November 2018 + show all updates
  1. Annex A: communications and networking has been added

  2. First published.

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