The Chinese claim to have developed drone swarm technology. We need combat air patrol drone swarms to protect our combat troops at the forward edge.
Swarmware is the software required to make a group (a few to scores) of UAVs to move and automatically cooperate with each other to accomplish a mission without a human controller and even in the presence jamming or electronic countermeasures. For decades there have been multiple efforts to develop true swarmware. The U.S. has come close but Chinese now claim they have done it.
Can forward American troops carry ground-based systems that can fend off a drone swarm attack?
I don't think heavier air defense systems at higher echelons can protect American troops from small drone swarms operating low over the battlefield in the "brown skies" above our companies and platoons. High-flying F-35s certainly can't do the job.
My worry is that American small units can't carry around enough air defense systems to protect themselves from drone air attack while still carrying out their primary ground combat mission. I wrote about this in Army magazine.
The only way to do the job and free American combat units for their primary mission is to have combat air patrol drone swarms that the forward American combat units don't have to think about while they do their primary jobs.
UPDATE: This article does a good job explaining the threat and inadequacy of traditional air defenses; and notes that one part of the solution is "drones designed to hunt other drones."
UPDATE: The Army has a new and cheap air defense missile. That's great. But it is still too expensive to use against small drones.
