BoTH 2: Drones

As jamming technologies rapidly evolved, drones increasingly operated in GNSS- and RF-denied environments. They still needed to carry out complex, multi-step tasks, such as reconnaissance and cargo delivery – or searching for a target in a large GNSS-denied area.

The question was: How might low-cost drones (additional hardware cost of maximum EUR 300 per drone) be developed that could carry out such sophisticated tasks? Participants thought about upgraded sensors, swarming, map reading, dynamically identifying gaps in jamming – and of course any other insane ideas they came up with.

As manufacturing of military drones ramped up worldwide, defending against vast quantities of adversary drones was a likely scenario. Humans – with their limited numbers, need for extensive training, and comparatively slow reflexes – likely presented a bottleneck.

The question was: How might low-cost, fully autonomous anti-drone drones be designed and deployed by a single operator? The idea was imagining designating a target for the drone and launching it within a few seconds, with minimal use of connectivity or additional hardware.

A bonus question considered how the deployment and targeting of anti-drone drones might be made completely automated.

A typical drone team consisted of 5 people who carried out a variety of tasks. These jobs required highly specialised personnel, and it was hard to hide teams that large in visual and RF spectrum. There were multiple ways of protecting them, such as separating the control centre from the launch site or having fewer teams in the field. The challenge explored how operators might be enabled to control multiple drones at the same time, doing substantially more with the same small team. Ideas included better human/machine interfaces and AI.

In case of a rapid escalation of a conflict, Belgian Defence would likely face a shortage of skilled drone pilots. While basic drone flying skills could be trained in a few hours, identifying recruits with the military mindset, training them in the necessary military knowledge, and keeping their skills up to date was far more complicated.

The question was: How might a cadre of up to 1000 trained drone operators be recruited and maintained? Participants thought about new ways of popularising the hobby of drone flying and considered bottlenecks such as expensive equipment, shortage of dedicated air space, limited supply of drones for hands-on training, and constraints of currently available drone simulators.

All companies active in the drone ecosystem faced many common issues. How might an effective drone ecosystem that would successfully tackle these and other challenges be constructed?

How (and by whom) would it be managed? Financed?

How would it keep being a useful tool for the entire ecosystem instead of slowly turning into yet another ineffectual industry “body” that only served its own perpetuation? Participants were asked to show their (business) plan.

There was a need to ensure scalability of the manufacturing capacity of the Belgian drone ecosystem to meet the needs of Belgian Defence (going from 2,000 units/year in peacetime to 100,000 units/year in conflict time). To attain this growth and maintain this capacity, a successful Dual Use approach was a likely path.

How would the Belgian drone ecosystem (combining private sector, academia, and Defence) need to be organised to become a competitive European actor for large-scale manufacturing contracts? Participants thought about pooling resources to substantially increase shared business development activity in the civilian and military space, and other aspects that might need to be coordinated.

To ensure scalability of manufacturing, ease of in-the-field updates and upgrades to drones, interoperability between components and systems, and creating a genuine competitive advantage for the Belgian drone ecosystem, taking a Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) approach adopted by all ecosystem members was a potential answer.

How might the Belgian drone ecosystem define an inexpensive drone system (hardware, sensors, firmware, controller, software) in line with the Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) approach, and keep it up to date?

A successful project might include a description of MOSA combining different drone systems and an overview of the process for creating the initial MOSA and ongoing review and improvement.

While BELDEF gave input and feedback, as well as providing relevant technical knowledge, it was not in the driving seat of creating MOSA.

Currently available R&D budgets tended to focus on low-TRL research projects, leaving a gap for faster adoption of high-TRL research.

How might the Belgian drone ecosystem create and continuously evolve a shared technology roadmap in consultation with BELDEF?

A successful project might include an example of a technology roadmap for drones with a 5-year horizon, the process for coordination of R&D efforts with universities, infrastructure requirements for testing facilities, and needs for knowledge sharing from Belgian Defence.