U.S. Navy Evaluates Swarm Aero's Drone C2 Software

The U.S. Navy assessed Swarm Aero’s Legion command-and-control software during its recent Fleet Experimentation (FLEX) exercise in Key West, Florida. The California-based start-up, which is developing large uncrewed air systems (UAS), reported on June 30 that the U.S. Navy’s 4th Fleet used the technology to coordinate multiple air and sea assets in a full find, fix, track, engage and assess process.

In early June, Swarm Aero started building the first production example of its UAS, which it said falls within the Group 5 class defined by the U.S. Department of Defense. The company intends for these drones to operate in “swarm” mode in which clusters of aircraft would interact and complete tasks collectively, and with varying degrees of autonomy, sometimes in conjunction with piloted aircraft

The FLEX exercise focused on how autonomous technology can help the U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command could use autonomous systems to patrol large maritime regions such as the Caribbean alongside ships. The experiments assessed how artificial intelligence can be used to innovate in the use of multi-domain uncrewed platforms.

According to Swarm Aero co-founder and chief revenue officer Oliver Palmer, operators only need a few hours to learn how to use the Legion software for command and control missions due to what the company said is a highly intuitive design. He added that the company had developed the technology for future defense needs in anticipation of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Replicator and Project Overmatch programs.

“We’ve yet again shown the level of orchestration customers demand, [with] a single operator able to plan and command operations with dozens of heterogeneous, multi-domain assets and diverse autonomy profiles simultaneously executing a mission,” said Swarm Aero co-founder and CEO Peter Kalogiannis/ “FLEX showcased that Legion’s unique approach to UXS [uncrewed] orchestration is operational and that we move fast to meet existing and emerging mission demands.”

In addition to maritime patrol and interdiction missions, UAS swarms are expected to be deployed for military use cases including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, strike coordination, and decoy tactics to overwhelm air defenses.