OFFSET Seeks Proposals to Accelerate Swarm Tactics in Virtual Environments
April 4, 2019 | DARPAEstimated reading time: 1 minute
DARPA is soliciting creative proposals for the fourth swarm sprint in its OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program. OFFSET envisions swarms of 250 collaborative autonomous systems providing critical capabilities to ground units in urban areas where challenges such as tall buildings, tight spaces, and limited sight lines constrain essential communications, sensing, maneuverability, and autonomous operations.
The swarm sprints aim to encourage rapid innovation and continuous incorporation of breakthrough technologies. Each of the five core sprints emphasizes one of the key OFFSET thrust areas – swarm tactics, swarm autonomy, human-swarm teaming, virtual environment, and physical testbed – to ultimately enable cross-cutting breakthroughs in swarm systems capabilities.
The fourth swarm sprint consists of two topics areas: developing synthetic technologies in the OFFSET virtual environments and identifying applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to discover and learn novel swarm tactics.
For the first topic area, proposers will seek to develop and implement synthetic capabilities in simulation, representing potential future technologies, such as distributed “see-through-wall” sensors, passive swarm communications, or enhanced sensor/computing arrays, to enable and demonstrate novel swarm tactics. Proposed technologies could be near-term advances that are being prototyped in laboratories or far-term ideas that are primarily conceptual but physically grounded.
The second topic area represents an ad hoc sprint for leveraging artificial Intelligence for accelerating swarm tactics design, for which sprinters will discover, learn, and harden novel swarm tactics by applying artificial intelligence frameworks via enhancements of the OFFSET virtual environments.
"With OFFSET, we are expanding the tactics available to warfighters, leveraging advances in autonomous systems to address complex challenges in urban environments," says Timothy Chung, program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO). “Exploring and developing swarm technologies in virtual environments today can yield insights and impact for real-world breakthrough capabilities tomorrow.”
DARPA also has awarded separate contracts for the third swarm sprint to Carnegie Mellon University and Soar Technology Inc., each of which will focus on development of advanced swarm tactics.
The third swarm sprint aims to augment the growing collection of swarm tactics in the OFFSET ecosystem, employing heterogeneous swarms of air and ground robots, and also to explore innovative technologies to enhance human-swarm teaming or how humans interact with autonomous swarms.
Suggested Items
BAE Systems and Eaton Expand Collaboration to Deliver Electric Drive Solutions for Heavy-Duty Trucks
05/08/2024 | PRNewswireBAE Systems, a leader in electric propulsion, and Eaton, a global power management company, are expanding their collaboration to include electric vehicle (EV) solutions for heavy-duty trucks.
OSI Systems Receives $6 Million Order for Electronic Assemblies
05/08/2024 | BUSINESS WIREOSI Systems, Inc. announced that its Optoelectronics and Manufacturing division has received an order for approximately $6 million to provide electronic assemblies to an advanced engineered solutions OEM.
Industrial PC Market Size to Record $1.75 Billion Growth from 2023-2027
05/03/2024 | PRNewswireThe global industrial pc market size is estimated to grow by USD 1.75 billion from 2023 to 2027, according to Technavio. This growth is expected to occur at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of almost 6.29% during the forecast period.
Real Time with… IPC APEX EXPO 2024: Sigma Engineering's Recycling and Regeneration Systems for PCB Etching
05/02/2024 | Real Time with...IPC APEX EXPOEvan Howard of Schmoll America interviews Kristoffer Bjorklund, Sigma Engineering's supply chain manager. We learn about Sigma's recycling and regeneration systems for PCB industry etching and the benefits and challenges of implementing these systems in existing factories.
QinetiQ Achieves UK’s First Jet-to-Jet Teaming Between Aircraft and Autonomous Drone
04/29/2024 | QinetiQQinetiQ has successfully trialled the UK’s first Crewed-Uncrewed-Teaming demonstration between a crewed aircraft and an autonomous jet drone.