AUTONOMOUS RESUPPLY IN A CONGESTED BATTLESPACE

Can autonomous drones deliver supplies to troops in an active firefight? DroneUp recently partnered with a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Joint Force Development (JFD) exercise to find out.

Participants met in Lawrenceville, Virginia—90 miles from Norfolk’s NATO ACT. The Brunswick County location provided a safe field environment to test the capabilities of the autonomous resupply experiment. The special operations experimental team also included Pale Horse Weapons Institute, Daniel Defense, Ultimate Training Munitions, and WeaponLogic.

DroneUp provided a patent-pending technology delivery solution and experiment execution for the operational experiment, which was led by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Atkinson, MBE, British Army. The experiment requirements included identifying and delivering a specified payload to three different recipients; delivering payloads unique to each recipient; drones locating the recipient; drones delivering the payload autonomously (pilotless); and visual confirmation of the correct unique payload. Further, the requirements had to prove where the recipient was either static or mobile.