Drone swarms’ systems consist of multiple drones designed to fulfil a given objective as a team. The number of drones can vary from a few to millions. Swarm algorithms are inspired from the swarms of insects, birds, fishes, and animals. Different swarm configurations can serve varying objectives. Few swarm formations work like a command structure with a leader and others work like collective volunteer formations with all taking their independent decision based on certain guidelines.

There are many tasks where hundreds of miniature drones can do the task more effectively instead of a single large size drones due to the characteristics of the objective function. Now people are also talking of micro robots and nano robots, that further expands the area of applications.

In the recent past swarm drones have been used by different entities in attacking Khmeimim airbase and Saudi Aramco oil facilities. Turkey also used swarm drones extensively in its operations against Syria and Libya. As compared to other advanced systems drones are much easier to fall into the hands of non-state actors and pose a grave danger for society. Drones are capable of suicidal missions with manageable costs resulting in possibilities of aggressive war tactics by different actors. There are indications that drones sent in large numbers can also hoodwink early warning systems as well as defence shields resulting in the need of new defence strategies. US and China are the largest spenders on the new drone systems while Turkey, Israel and Russia are other countries producing drone’s at large scale. Now, the companies have come up with drones that can be controlled from smart mobile phones, making it another nightmare for law enforcement and defence establishment. Recently there have been reports of tests being conducted on swarms of thousands of drones. These drones can be very small and look like a bee, sparrow or insects which will make them difficult to identify. These drones can attack the food supply chain, electricity networks, water network and other crucial infrastructure of the adversary. These swarm drones can also be configured to spread pandemics, deployed in chemical warfare, generating specific radiations or electromagnetic waves. The swarm drones can be the next frontier and predominant theme of next war based on AI.

Swarm drones have got equal potential for the constructive applications for increasing the quality of life of human society. In early research, Nano Swarm drones can be used in human body for finding different paraments and they can also be deployed to release or act on body functions or parts resulting in cure of many diseases. Micro drones can also be used in automated manufacturing plants for sensing different activities including vibrations, disruptions, breakages etc. They can also act as rescue workers and help in rescue missions in difficult area. There are instances where they have been used during earthquakes, tornados, and fire events.  They can also be used in 3D printing of large structures and in mining in difficult terrains. Recently Swarm drones have also been tested to perform agriculture related tasks. They are especially useful in hilly terrains where even small patches of land can be effectively used with drone-robots helping in different operations of agriculture. Recently Swarm drones has also been used by China to spread speedy information to the public at remote places using pamphlets or audio messages. These have also been used for law enforcement in rallies, crowded places, and large religious gatherings. Scientists have also started using drones for data collection and analysis of pants, animals and fishes etc where turns out to be cost-effective as compared to human effort. 

Overall, swarm drones are going to throw a significant opportunities and challenges in the coming decade.

This article first appeared in the TOI