The US Navy wants swarms of thousands of small drones

The US Navy is working on ways to build, deploy, and control thousands of small drones that are able to flock together to overwhelm anti-aircraft defenses with sheer numbers, budget documents reveal.

The conflict in Ukraine has proved the worth of small drones, including consumer quadcopters, which have carried out reconnaissance, guided artillery fire, and destroyed tanks. Such drones are currently limited by the fact that each one needs its own operator. In a swarm, however, hundreds or thousands of drones are controlled as a single unit.

“The significance of drone swarms is that they can be conceivably applied to virtually any mission.” says Zachary Kallenborn, a policy fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.