NATO tests autonomous drone technology in DARPA-style competition

In a basement beneath City St George’s, University of London, senior leaders from NATO watch as four research teams from the UK, US, Netherlands and Austria, showcase their AI-controlled, autonomous drones. The groups are competing against each other as part of the NATO-funded SAPIENCE programme, designed to accelerate progress with this emerging technology, particularly in a world where drones on the battlefield are changing warfare, as demonstrated in Ukraine.

“We are still trying to understand what are the impacts of drones,” says Claudio Palestini, head of NATO’s Science for Peace and Security programme. “We have regular contact with Ukraine where we understand what they are doing with technology,” he says. “NATO is adapting to this new way of fighting, we are developing some concepts in the drone warfare sphere.”

While there are applications on the battlefield, Palestini is keen to stress that there is a dual nature to NATO’s work. “What we do [at NATO’s Science for Peace and Security programme], it’s not purely military,” he says. “We want to have technology development that can be used in the commercial sector, but also in the defence sector. And this is where cooperation with Ukraine helps.” Such work has echoes of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

In London, the first of four events gets under way, simulating an indoor search and rescue scenario in an environment where GPS won’t work that is akin to the aftermath of a natural disaster. The team from City St George’s deploys two autonomous drones working cooperatively in a swarm configuration, with deep-learning algorithms driving navigation.

“We’re the only ones that used a neural network,” says Thomas Hickling, a PhD student and member of the team, highlighting how the group thinks this form of AI is better for mapping damaged infrastructure. Speed and reliability are also considerations, especially in life-saving scenarios. “We decided to use two drones as it’s much quicker and increases reliability,” says Hickling. “If one drone fails, you’ve got another one automatically. You can take over the jobs of the other drone.”

Future SAPIENCE events will test the teams’ technology in outdoor and mixed environments, performing a range of simulated tasks. While presented as a competition, Palestini sees this as a driving force behind acceleration and cooperation in the field. “We don’t expect to have a single winner,” he says. “We will have some sort of ranking, but all the ideas are good.”