DND Looking into Micro-UAVs, UAV Swarming

DND is looking into a future where section commanders will carry a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) or Nokia Internet Tablet to get information from their own tiny unmanned aerial vehicle.

This is part of a project being undertaken according to this posting to MERX:

The Department of National Defence, Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), Toronto, Ontario has a requirement to develop and evaluate suitable operator interface technologies that would provide interface requirements to the Canadian Forces for controlling uninhabited vehicles.

It is anticipated that the contractor will develop a system and user manual for the complex synthetic environment in the research test-bed and for prototype interfaces on two handheld devices. The contractor will develop  recommendations on the optimal platform, system structure, function allocations, and design to provide users’ needs for both types of operator
interfaces.

The period of work is from date of contract award, to March 31, 2011.

As usual, the juicier, more detailed bits are to be found in the Statement of Work here (PDF).

In spite of the description in the MERX online posting, there appears to be two parts to this project.

The first phase of  study is to develop prototype systems, based on the PSP and the Nokia Internet Tablet, to see which might be better for use by section commanders in getting information from a micro-aerial vehicle – think something along these lines or smaller:

The Statement of Work says the final evaluation of the competing systems should be ready by the end of March 2010.

The second part of the project involves creating a kind of simulator where you have swarms of UAVs and unmanned ground vehicles (UVGs – think reconnaissance robots) operating with vehicles, planes, tanks and all other players on a complex battlefield.  The simulator would be used as an exercise tool to assess “the collective behaviour of the team of “battle space entities” ” (translation:  everything working on a battlefield at any given time) as well as the systems used to control the UAVs and UVGs.

Bid documents say this second phase is expected to begin in the fiscal year starting April 2010, with the results reported by the end of March 2011.

Total cost is projected to be no more than $250,000, with bids being accepted until 2pm Eastern 9 Nov 09.

UPDATE (1): Some forum discussion on this one worth reading at Milnet.ca and the Small Wars Council.

UPDATE (2): Looking for some of the vehicles to swarm with.

Update (3): Canadian Press catches up on story.