In Guangzhou last December, China set a world record when it mobilized a large swarm of drones. Never before has any country or organization achieved this feat. They launched more than 1,100 miniature drones and used them to carry out several small tasks to show a collective orchestration of the drones.  There has been a lot of debate surrounding this topic.

China displayed that a successful swarm of drones was much more than numbers. These UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) operated in close proximity to one another as a team. The show was put on towards the end of 2017 and revealed that Chinese drone engineers could create an effective swarm system.  They flew 1,180 small drones as a single unit and showed the autonomous flight capabilities of the swarm. It was a breakthrough in the drone industry that was used to illustrate that even if the devices were small, they were still capable of much more by working together.

Now that they have successfully shown their expertise in drone swarming, China has moved on to more complex swarm technology. They are developing UAVs that are capable of independent actions and even “thought”.  During the last swarming display, when the drones fell out of sync with the rest of the group, they simply took control of navigation and executed a flawless landing.

The general idea is that if the swarms can be used for tactical warfare, then the technology would have effectively achieved what no other has been able to achieve in centuries of warfare evolution.  In America, scientists are hard at work on the same issue. The United States’ Low-Cost Unmanned aerial vehicle Swarming Technology (LOCUST) program, for example, revealed a system that quickly launched drones into the air from a tube. The system looked like giant gun spitting out several rounds of drones per minute.

With China’s success in recreating a lower-tech version of the U.S. Predator and Reaper, it is obvious that the race is on for better, and more high-tech drone technology.  The mini-drone swarms are a great achievement for the Chinese government. These small UAVs have the ability to self-repair in case of damage and this is one feature that is revolutionary. The technology goes to show that the swarms can truly work in an autonomous bubble. They have important and useful abilities that can create many benefits in the drone industry and it will be interesting to see what the future holds.

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