As reported by American web resource С4ISRNET in the material Burak Ege Bekdil "Turkish firm develops AI-powered software for drone swarms" (Burak EGE of Bekdil "Turkish firm develops software based on artificial intelligence for swarm drones"), a private Turkish company MilSOFT stated that it had developed a software based on artificial intelligence for a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Light show demonstration of a swarm of small unmanned aerial vehicles Intel Shooting Star (C) Joey Swafford / US air force
According to a release from MilSOFT on November 19, 2020, the software developed as a result of four years of research can be used in relation to both aircraft-type and helicopter-type drones.
An official representing the aerospace industry in the government said that swarming unmanned aerial vehicles, due to their low cost of hardware and low-visibility technology, will be used in a promising concept of unmanned aerial combat being developed by Turkey.
"These drones can be the perfect weapon in asymmetric warfare. They have a high flight speed, are inexpensive and easy to operate, " says the curator of the aerospace industry in the government of the country. "Most importantly, they are designed to minimize human losses in an asymmetric war."
The Turkish military uses a large fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles-reconnaissance and attack vehicles-mainly to fight Kurdish militants in Turkey's southeastern provinces, as well as for cross-border operations in Northern Syria and Iraq. Turkish drones have also been used in the Libyan civil war and, most recently, in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Many countries have not yet begun to use swarm intelligence techniques to control groups of unmanned aerial vehicles in a simulated controlled environment. Turkey is among those who have the technology and the ability to test it in real-world conditions of use during military operations.
Turkey's main procurement body, the defense industry Administration (SSB), has launched a program to develop and demonstrate swarm management technologies for unmanned aerial vehicles in order to develop algorithms and software for use in swarm - capable unmanned platforms. The program also involves the involvement of private enterprises representing micro, small and medium-sized businesses.
MilSOFT company specializes in software development since 1998 and is one of the participants of the state program. It offers the Turkish military products for solving tasks such as automatic recognition of detected moving targets using artificial intelligence and machine learning methods with image processing algorithms.
The company said that the integration of its products related to the intellectualization of software for unmanned aerial vehicles and image evaluation will increase the capabilities of swarming drones, including aerial reconnaissance, target detection and recognition, participation in search and rescue operations, as well as tracking ground vehicles.
The MilSOFT software solution will allow you to launch swarms of drones from air, land and sea platforms, and the images they receive will be transmitted to a centralized control system. At the same time, swarms of drones will transmit images between different military formations as repeaters.
Artificial intelligence technology can help identify those elements that are elusive to the human eye, and ensure the massive use of aviation weapons, which are carried by the involved unmanned aerial vehicles.
It is expected that the MilSOFT software based on artificial intelligence will also allow swarms of drones to perform frontal attacks on command from helicopters and ensure the actions of other platforms of their troops (forces). It is reported that unmanned aerial vehicles will be able to operate autonomously from the beginning to the end of a flight task; they can be tracked and controlled in near-real-time mode using intelligent applications.
The duration of the flight of drones exceeds 30 minutes, and their load capacity is 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). They are equipped with landing gear that will allow them to land on uneven ground.
Currently, the swarm of drones used in a combat situation consists of five vehicles; in a controlled environment, their number can reach 25. At the same time, MilSOFT aims to create a swarm of drones from 50 devices that are simultaneously in the air.
Communication between drones is also provided by MilSOFT's proprietary technology. The devices can communicate with each other at a distance of up to 500 meters. A network solution has been developed for data transmission within a radius of up to 10 kilometers.
MilSOFT plans to integrate its technologies for underwater and surface platforms, as well as for land-based unmanned vehicles.
