WASHINGTON — California-based defense technology firm Shield AI on Monday launched a brand new drone swarming capability called V-Bat Teams — one it hopes the Defense Department might use for programs corresponding to its Replicator initiative.
V-Bat Teams, which grew out of Shield AI’s experiments with the Air Force’s AFWERX innovation unit that culminated in an illustration this summer, has at its core the corporate’s artificial intelligence pilot software dubbed Hivemind. These teams consisting of a handful of V-Bat aircraft are intended to operate autonomously in high-threat environments, while not having instructions or guidance from GPS or communications.
In an interview Tuesday on the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington, Shield AI’s co-founder and president said V-Bat Teams might be a “great fit” with the Pentagon’s Replicator program, which goals to field hundreds of autonomous, attritable drones in the subsequent two years to counter China.
Brandon Tseng added that V-Bat Teams would operate with minimal instruction from human operators, beyond the purpose where the humans tell them what goal or mission to pursue. Nevertheless, the V-Bats would notify humans after they notice something that should be dropped at their attention.
Tseng said Shield AI conducted the primary flight of V-Bat Teams in April and conducted an illustration as a part of the Air Force’s AFWERX autonomy effort in June. That demo, which was announced in August, showed how the Hivemind technology could launch and autonomously control a trio of V-Bats to observe and surveil simulated wildfires.
V-Bat Teams now include 4 of the UAVs, Tseng said, but the corporate hopes to double that capability yearly — to eight in 2024, then to 16, and so forth.
Hivemind’s autonomous software is, by itself, already capable of control many more V-Bats, Tseng said. The limiting factor on V-Bat Teams is available in the operational logistics of launching multiple drones without delay after which landing, he explained.
Sending large swarms of drones into the air isn’t a brand new trick, Tseng noted, as such demonstrations are commonly done at festivals or other celebratory events. But those are “brittle, dumb drones” that might fall out of the sky or robotically land in the event that they were jammed, he added. Shield AI first focused on creating an intelligent, secure AI pilot in the shape of Hivemind, after which the firm worked so as to add more drones into the combination to perform different mission sets.
V-Bat Teams will first give attention to maritime domain awareness missions, Tseng said, but their use could expand to incorporate the suppression of enemy air defenses, strike operations, escort missions and logistics operations.
With their relatively low price — Tseng said the V-Bat’s price point comes across the mid-six-figure range — V-Bats could even be used as decoys to lure out enemy fire and take hits that might otherwise goal crewed aircraft.
V-Bats are attritable, Tseng noted, which suggests they might be sent into combat in considerable numbers and the military could easily weather their loss, while still with the ability to operate intelligently.
Tseng said a few of Ukraine’s experiences have shown that throwing waves of basic drones at an enemy isn’t all the time enough to make a dent. “You would like intelligent, reasonably priced mass,” he noted. “Mass for the sake of mass isn’t helpful; it has very low returns.”
Shield AI goals to sell V-Bat Teams to all U.S. military services in addition to foreign customers.
“You’re going to open up a brand new paradigm of those operations when you could have this many aircraft which are capable of do it autonomously,” Tseng said.
For now, nevertheless, Tseng doesn’t see V-Bat Teams fitting in with the Air Force’s plan to create a fleet of collaborative combat aircraft — autonomous drones that fly alongside crewed fighters corresponding to F-35s. Shield AI is open to looking further into the collaborative combat aircraft program, he said, but what the Air Force has in mind differs from V-Bat’s design.
“We’re open to it,” Tseng explained. “But they need AI-piloted jets, and that’s what they’re focused on before they begin fascinated with how those AI-piloted jets work with other machines like a V-Bat.”
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.