En el marco del \u201cProyect Convergence\u201d, el\u00a0US Army\u00a0prev\u00e9 desarrollar el ejercicio EDGE 22, en el cual realizar\u00e1 ensayos con Enjambres de Drones\u00a0(Drone Swarms),\u00a0para que se\u00a0comporten de manera similar a las\u00a0\u201cmanadas de lobos\u201d. Con un Drone \u201cl\u00edder\u201d a cargo, los dem\u00e1s tienen sus respectivas misiones individuales, pero si un integrante es abatido, otro drone tomar\u00e1 a su cargo esa misi\u00f3n. Se verificar\u00e1 la capacidad del enjambre para detectar, identificar, localizar e informar; geolocalizaci\u00f3n; operaciones colaborativas empleando algoritmos; navegaci\u00f3n en ambientes con \u201cGPS denegado\u201d. Tambi\u00e9n se verificar\u00e1 la capacidad letal de algunos drones armados. En EDGE 22 participar\u00e1n adem\u00e1s varios pa\u00edses de la NATO, en la realizaci\u00f3n de una operaci\u00f3n de asalto combinado, en la cual los Drones estar\u00e1n integrados a los elementos operativos.<\/p>\n
NASHVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 The U.S. Army plans to experiment with drone swarms that behave more like a wolf pack at its second\u00a0aviation-focused exercise\u00a0<\/a>leading up to\u00a0Project Convergence later this year<\/a>, the director of the service\u2019s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team told Defense News.<\/p>\n The Edge 22 drill will take place in the spring at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, and will feed into\u00a0Project Convergence<\/a>, a bigger campaign of learning scheduled for the fall. Project Convergence has grown from an Army event in the Arizona desert at Yuma Proving Ground in 2020 to a joint evaluation in 2021 and then to a coalition-level exercise this year.<\/p>\n Edge \u2014 which stands for Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise \u2014 is considered Army aviation\u2019s scrimmage before the big game. At Edge 21, the Army achieved 56 \u201cfirsts,\u201d including a soldier at an unprecedented speed learning how to control both an unmanned aircraft system and its sensors from a tablet. It took the solider less than an hour to do so before executing the mission.<\/p>\n Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, who leads the Army\u2019s future vertical lift modernization efforts, told Defense News in an interview last month ahead of the Army Aviation Association of America\u2019s annual conference that he is \u201cfading away\u201d from thinking about drone swarms that exhibit the behaviors of insects. Instead, he\u2019s looking at something more attune to how wolves run in packs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s behaviors in the wolf pack,\u201d he said. It hunts, he explained during a media roundtable at AAAA, \u201cand there\u2019s an alpha that kind of runs the show and then each wolf has a duty, but then those duties are hierarchical. And if one wolf gets knocked out by the antlers, a second one\u2019s going [to fill the gap].\u201d<\/p>\n The swarm is \u201cthe largest interactive swarm\/pack that I\u2019m aware of that\u2019s ever occurred,\u201d Rugen told Defense News.<\/p>\n The Army has been partnering with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on the effort. The swarm will demonstrate some unclassified behaviors, including the ability to detect, identify, locate and report; geolocation; electronic warfare; collaborative operations and cooperative search using algorithms and patterns; and navigating in a GPS-denied environment. The Army will also have lethal effects in the swarm so a drone can neutralize a target.<\/p>\n The rest of the behaviors are classified, Rugen noted.<\/p>\n If drones drop out of the swarm, he explained, the Army will seek to understand \u201chow we need to fill in the gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBehaviors are important because they\u2019re going to be software that we then update as we go forward to be far more effective\u201d in operations such as penetrating enemy defenses, he added.<\/p>\n Also at Edge 22, the service is joined by international participants, including seven NATO countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the U.K., Canada, France and Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll do a combined air assault with our partners, and I\u2019m very excited about some of the technologies they are bringing to get those cross-domain solutions,\u201d Rugen said.<\/p>\n The goal is to ensure the Army understands where it is interoperable with its partners and allies.<\/p>\n The Army is also \u201csignificantly ramping up\u201d its electronic warfare capability. As electronic warfare systems come in smaller packages, the service will experiment with a small air-launched effects capability, Rugen said. An air-launched effect is a drone that will be deployed from a larger aircraft equipped with sensors or weapons. The vision is that it will operate in a team with the Army\u2019s manned or optionally manned future vertical lift aircraft.<\/p>\n