Swarm Technology Enabling Advanced Drone-Facilitated Active Support Tactics for Military and First Responder Operations

The STEADFAST project aims to enhance situational awareness in military and civil scenarios with the help of human-swarm teams (HST) that can be deployed in a resilient and responsible manner, collecting, and sharing real-time information in complex missions in non-permissive environments. In time-sensitive tactical situations where SA is of paramount importance and human operators deal with high cognitive demands,
(semi-)autonomous energy-efficient tiny-drone swarms can collect data fast, from various vantage points and at low altitudes even in a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-denied environment. The project examines novel neuromorphic interpretation methods of visual event data collected by dynamic vision sensors methods that have the potential to improve energy efficiency of HST (Human Swarm Teaming) while increasing execution speed. Training of the systems includes cognitive load data of human operators and involves different simulated scenarios in urban settings including hostile events. The intended outcome of the project that will be developed in co-creation with end users is to provide a roadmap for the development and use of HST systems with flexible and adaptive autonomy to be adopted in military and civil fast-response scenarios under conditions that are satisfactory from an operational, ethical, and legal perspective, and to provide educational and training tools that ensure organizational acceptance and effective organizational implementation.