Swarms

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is asking for concepts for drones with a high degree of autonomous operation, as well as remotely-operated containerized systems to launch, recover, and otherwise support them. What DARPA is really interested in is a pairing that can be employed as part of a largely self-sustaining “autonomous constellation” capable of supporting networked swarms consisting of as many as 500 drones at once.

A “constellation” like the one described above, incorporating drones configured for a wide array of roles, including surveillance and reconnaissance and kinetic strike, could be readily deployed in contested areas, or even potentially positioned deep behind enemy lines. Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb covert drone attacks on several Russian airbases last year, as well as Israel’s near-field attacks from within Iran during the opening phases of the 12 Day War, have already demonstrated the effectiveness of the kind of capability DARPA is seeking. TWZ has also highlighted the value that this kind of drone swarm launch capability would offer on land and at sea on several occasions in the past, including after the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) put out a very similar call for proposals earlier this year.

DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO) first put out its request for information for this containerized drone swarm capability back in April, but has updated the relevant contracting notice several times since then. The latest version was posted online yesterday. At least from what has been shared so far, DARPA has not yet given this project a name.

“Existing commercial, airborne Group 1-3 platforms are limited in endurance, payload capacity, and onboard electrical auxiliary power. When operated as constellations, they typically require substantial infrastructure and basing area [sic] for deployment and recovery. These constellations typically require human involvement to recover, recharge/refuel, and launch again, lacking full autonomy necessary to achieve sustained operations spanning days or longer,” the current version of the contracting notice explains. “The landscape of current platform technologies has broad limitations that require evolution to achieve high-endurance constellations consisting of drones with meaningful payload Size Weight, Power, and Cost (SWaP-C) staged from fully autonomous containers capable of complete mission-cycle management inclusive of launch, sustainment/swap-out, and recovery.”

The U.S. military breaks drones into five different categories. Collectively, drones in Groups 1 and 2 can have maximum weights of up to 55 pounds, fly up to altitudes of 3,500 feet, and have top speeds of up to 250 knots. Group 3 is a very broad middle tier that covers designs that weigh anywhere from 56 to 1,320 pounds and can get up to 18,000 feet, but again have speeds of 250 knots or less. Together, Groups 1 through 3 include a very wide range of drones from small quadcopters all the way up to long-range one-way attack munitions.

Given the aforementioned limitations, “DARPA has identified an exigent need for highly deployable, versatile-SWaP Group 1-3 platforms, operating in autonomous constellations that are stored within, deployed from, recovered in, and managed by a fully autonomous container, to support a variety of payloads and missions in GPS-denied environments,” the contracting notice adds. “Advancements in low-SWaP technologies enable constellations comprising a variety of novel payloads, each requiring dedicated power and weight, but capable of operating in synchrony across the constellation. Constellation populations may comprise up to 500 platforms (number may vary as a function of payload type). Each platform will be equipped with a subsystem or independent payload system with the potential to achieve high operational availability for the combined system over multiple-day periods.”

The notice leaves the requirements for the drones and the containerized launch and recovery systems relatively open-ended.

“Unmanned aerial vehicle (herein referred to as “drones”) in the Group 1-3 space with capabilities for fully autonomous launch, recovery, storage, organization, recharging/refueling, organization, internal logistics management, and pre/post-flight checkout. Proposed drone designs must form a mission-focused, collaborative constellation. Responses must be cognizant of long endurance drone constellations with high operational availability and constellation management,” per the notice. “Novel configurations that enable multi-day continuous operations with their corollary constellation management software (ideally with path optimization and collision deconfliction) and innovative configurations of autonomous container-based deployment solutions are of particular interest to DARPA.”

“Storage containers (herein referred to as “containers”) that provide fully autonomous drone storage, logistics management, launch, recovery, and recharge/refuel, while conforming to the intention of a standardized military container (e.g. Conex, 463L pallets, Tricon, ISU container, etc.),” the notice adds. “Innovative ideas and non-standard containers (e.g. suitcase-based distributed systems, box-based systems) will also be considered within the context of the presented approach, but solutions should be compatible with current military transport capabilities. It is envisioned that these containers shall be self-sufficient with consideration of energy storage, communication equipment, and compute capability.”

DARPA also says it has a tangential interest in a remotely operated “host platform” that could carry the containers to and from a designated area, from which the drones can then be launched and recovered. The contracting notice does not specify whether this would be an air, ground, or maritime platform, or some mixture thereof.

The video in the social media post below shows a launch system for quadcopter-type drones installed on an uncrewed ground vehicle, which the U.S. Army previously tested.

Perhaps most interestingly, DARPA’s contracting notice highlights existing drone-and-launcher combinations used for “preplanned lightshows and commercial activities,” though it also notes that these are not suitable for U.S. military use. Last year, TWZ pointed out how these exact kinds of developments in the commercial entertainment space underscore very real threats posed by more capable, weaponized swarms. That piece came after a Chinese firm, DAMODA, rolled out a containerized system capable of launching, recovering, and recharging thousands of small, electrically-powered quadcopter-type drones at the touch of a button.

China just dropped a new level of drone swarm tech | One-click auto-deploy of thousands | by DAMODA

As we wrote at that time:

It is worth reiterating that DAMODA’s Automated Drone Swarm Container System, at least as it exists now, is clearly designed for entertainment industry use first and foremost. Though the company’s drone light show routines are certainly visually impressive and often go viral on social media, they are pre-scripted and conducted in a very localized fashion. What the company is offering is not a drone swarm capable of performing various military-minded tasks in a highly autonomous manner at appreciable ranges from its launch point.

At the same time, large-scale drone light shows put on by DAMODA (and a growing number of other companies), do highlight, on a broad level, the already highly problematic threats posed by swarms. The new Automated Drone Swarm Container System underscores the additional danger of these same threats hiding in plain sight. The steady proliferation of advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, especially when it comes to dynamic targeting, will only create additional challenges, as TWZ has explored in detail in this past feature.

This is not theoretical, either. As mentioned, in June [2025], Ukrainian forces launched multiple drone attacks on airbases across Russia with the help of covert launchers loaded on the back of unassuming civilian tractor-trailer trucks. This entire effort was dubbed Operation Spiderweb and took months of planning.

The global market space for containerized launch systems for drones and other payloads is already substantial and continues to grow. Firms in China have been particularly active in this regard, and developments in that country have often also been tied to work on swarming capabilities. Companies in the United States, as well as in Europe and elsewhere around the world, are also increasingly active in this arena.

中国电科陆空协同固定翼无人机“蜂群”系统

Modular Payload System: Launching from Land or Sea

In general, containerized weapon systems offer immense flexibility for employment in ground-based modes, including for rapid deployment to remote or austere locations, as well as on any ship with sufficient deck space. TWZ has previously laid out a very detailed case for why the U.S. Navy should arm its warships with containers loaded with swarms of drones, which you can find here.

Container-like launchers for drones, many of which are mounted on trucks, are also an increasingly common sight globally. Iran has been a particularly significant developer of such capabilities as part of its development of long-range kamikaze drones, as seen in the video below.

Баражуючий іранський боєприпас «Shahed 136»

However, most existing relevant containerized or container-like systems focus on launching payloads rather than recovering them, let alone getting them ready to be relaunched. To date, the latter capabilities have been more of an area of interest for commercial applications. Chinese firm DJI and other companies are increasingly offering container-like ‘docks’ for small commercial drones, though they are generally designed to host just one uncrewed aerial system at a time.

TWZ actually covered much of this already after the DIU announced it was hunting for a very similar-sounding Containerized Autonomous Drone Delivery System (CADDS) capability in February. The CADDS announcement, however, was focused purely on the launch-and-recovery components of the equation, as you can read more about here. How DIU’s effort might be related to what DARPA is exploring now is unknown.

In its call for CADDS proposals, DIU had also highlighted a new, more general emerging demand for more launch capacity to go along with a U.S.-military push to acquire and field hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new drones, especially smaller types, in the next few years. This has all been spurred on by sweeping new guidance from the Pentagon rolled out last year, aimed at “unleashing U.S. Military drone dominance.” Though DARPA’s contracting notice does not touch on this directly, the capability it is describing would help address this broader question of how U.S. forces were actually employ all of these new uncrewed aerial systems.

Furthermore, as we wrote after DIU put out its call for CADDS proposals:

“Even in an overt operational context, readily deployable containerized systems capable of acting as hubs for drone operations across a broad area with limited manpower requirements could offer a major boost in capability and capacity. Ships, trucks, and aircraft, which could themselves be uncrewed, could be used to bring them to and from forward locations, even in remote areas. If they can support a ‘heterogeneous mix’ of uncrewed aerial systems, a single container could be used to support a wide array of mission requirements, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, kinetic strikes, and/or communications signal relay.”

“An inherent benefit of a drone swarm, in general, is that each individual component does not have to be configured to perform all of the desired tasks. This creates additional flexibility and resilience to threats, since the loss of any particular drone does not necessarily preclude the swarm from continuing its assigned missions. There are tangential design and cost benefits for the drones themselves, since they can be configured to carry only the systems required for their particular mission demands.”

Army Aviation Launches Autonomous Pack Hunters

…

“Drone swarms are only set to become more capable as advancements in autonomy, especially automated target recognition, continue to progress, driven by parallel developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as you can read more about here. Future highly autonomous swarms will be able to execute various mission sets even more efficiently and in ways that compound challenges for defenders. Massed drone attacks with limited autonomy already have an inherent capacity to just overwhelm enemy defenses. In turn, electronic warfare systems and high-power microwave directed energy weapons have steadily emerged as some of the most capable options available to tackle swarms, but have their own limitations. Even powerful microwave systems have very short ranges and are directional in nature, and electronic warfare systems may simply not work at all against autonomous drones.”

It remains to be seen whether or not DARPA’s exploration of drone swarms and associated launch systems that could form future “autonomous constellations” leads to an operational capability. Still, this, together with DIU’s CADDS effort, shows clear interest within the U.S. military in making this a reality, if possible.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

With orders for the twin-rotor helicopter still rolling in, Boeing has provided details on its future plans for the venerable H-47 Chinook, including adding launched effects and creating a path toward a crewed version of the aircraft. The latter would offer an unprecedented vertical-lift capability, and one that could be of great interest to the U.S. Army and other operators.

At the Army Aviation Association of America’s Army Aviation Warfighting Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, today, Boeing released a computer-generated promotional video showing launched effects being delivered from the rear ramp of a Chinook.

Launched effects, previously referred to as air-launched effects (ALEs), describe a category of various uncrewed systems that you can read more about here. The new launched effects terminology reflects the fact that they might be launched from land or maritime platforms, as well as crewed and uncrewed aircraft. Launched effects drones include types that operate as scouts, electronic attackers, decoys, and suicide drones. They are typically highly autonomous, operating independently or in more complex networked swarms.

When it comes to the Chinook, Boeing confirms that launched effects are yet to be tested from the helicopter, but the company is working toward that goal.

Kathleen Jolivette, the vice president and general manager for Boeing’s Vertical Lift division, said today that the company is investing its own funds in the initiative and is currently looking at how rapidly it might be able to move into the demonstration phase, based on expected U.S. Army and international interest.

It’s worth noting, meanwhile, that Boeing and the Army are already pushing ahead on launched effects demonstrations from the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, including recently announced trials with Anduril’s ALTIUS-700 Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) launched from an AH-64E. The Army says that this program progressed from a requirement to a live demonstration in less than six months.

With its capacious hold, the Chinook would be able to accommodate huge numbers of launched effects, allowing multiple missions to be fulfilled over an extended period, especially when compared with other helicopters that typically launch these drones from externally mounted tubes.

The Chinook would also be much better able to handle larger launched effects. In the past, the Army has issued descriptions of ‘large’ drones in this category. These are envisaged as having a combat range of up to 350 kilometers (217 miles) and a total flight time of 30 minutes. However, there has also been an aspiration to increase those performance specifications to up to 650 kilometers (404 miles) and an hour of total time in the air. These would weigh up to 225 pounds each, compared to around 25 pounds for an ALTIUS-600, for example.

There is a possibility that Chinooks, specifically special operations MH-47Gs, are already using some kind of launched effects. As we discussed at the time, there is strong evidence that the U.S. military may have used kamikaze drones during the operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro earlier this year. Whatever the case, launched effects are increasingly key to the survival of rotary-wing aviation going forward.

As well as launched effects, Boeing is pushing ahead with work on what it calls an optimally crewed Chinook, reflecting U.S. Army terminology. As far as we understand it, the terms optimally crewed and optionally crewed appear to be interchangeable, although the former could also include reduced-crew flying with the help of an AI copilot. Boeing also pushed us toward an Army press release for the H-60Mx Black Hawk helicopter, described as an optimally piloted vehicle and extensively modified to fly with or without a pilot at the controls.

Heather McBryan, the vice president and H-47 program manager at Boeing, said the company is now “working very closely” with the Army in terms of what additional capability it wants to add to future Block II production lots.

According to McBryan, the Army “publicly stated their desire for what they’re calling an optimally crewed aircraft, where they can, in some instances, reduce the workload for pilots, but in other instances, eliminate it completely, and we’ve made a lot of great progress in those efforts.”

McBryan says that this work is also responding to demand from international customers.

As part of this effort, after years of development and post-production modifications, Boeing recently added its Active Parallel Actuator Subsystem (APAS) to the Chinook production line. A hardware and software system, McBryan describes APAS as working “like lane-assist in your vehicle.”

Tested on the special-missions MH-47G for some years now, APAS reduces pilot workload, but also provides additional situational awareness and enables safer maneuvering, especially at the edges of the aircraft’s envelope. For now, APAS is mainly for the MH-47G and for the United Kingdom’s new Chinooks, but McBryan confirms that Boeing is looking at how to bring additional elements of autonomy into the CH-47F as well.

In February, for example, a CH-47F successively completed its first fully automated approach and landing test flight, something that Boeing calls “approach to x.”

This used the company’s upgraded Digital Automatic Flight Control System (DAFCS), the software ensuring the Chinook touched down all four wheels on a runway without any pilot intervention. While DAFCS is currently deployed on the CH-47F fleet, the upgraded version further reduces pilot workload and brings autonomy to tactical approaches, boosting flexibility and operational capability.

Right now, every Chinook coming off the production line has the basic DAFCS, while APAS essentially provides an enhancement, building on the same flight control system with a combination of hardware and software.

As Chris Speights, the chief engineer for Boeing Vertical Lift, explains, with APAS, “the parallel actuation system actually amplifies, provides a higher-bandwidth control mechanism for it that the software can then take advantage of. So we get more precise control and augmentation with APAS when you add it on top.”

Boeing CH-47F Block II Chinook Helicopter: Next-Level Heavy Lift

Speights added that Boeing is also looking at the future beyond APAS.

“APAS is the foundation, then there would be other capabilities, whether it’s algorithmic or whether it’s sensors or the integration of those that would give further autonomous capability in the future,” he said.

Potentially, this could lead to entirely autonomous Chinook flights, from takeoff to landing, for an optimally uncrewed or even a fully uncrewed Chinook.

Speights described the work on the upgraded DAFCS and APAS as “foundational,” should the company pursue an optimally crewed Chinook.

“That puts us on the path for the flight automation, not necessarily full autonomy, but flight automation, which starts today with pilot workload reduction, and approach to x,” Speights said. “But it enables further capabilities in the future, as the customer desires, based on their concept of how the aircraft would be used.”

It is worth noting that Sikorsky has been working on both optionally crewed and uncrewed versions of its H-60 Black Hawk series. Late last year, the company unveiled its U-Hawk demonstrator, a fully uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter, intended to carry cargo and deliver launched effects. The U-Hawk leverages the company’s past work on a Pilot Optional Vehicle (OPV) version of the Black Hawk, which has been flying for years.

Introducing the S-70UAS™ U-Hawk™

For now, however, Jolivette said that Boeing is “gonna wait and see what happens” with the Army’s uncrewed/optimally crewed vision. “I think there’s more to come on that,” she added.

As well as APAS, Boeing is looking at how it can bring a digital backbone to the CH-47F. A digital backbone essentially provides a shared network of data and tools that connects both production design and sustainment. The result is that everyone who is working on the aircraft gets the same data points and the same information at the same time. In practice, this would mean adding multiple redundant networks and distributed interface units to ensure precise monitoring. With reliably collected data, the Chinook should be easier to upgrade, safer to operate, and quicker to fix.

The Chinook remains very much in demand, meanwhile.

The latest budget request includes funding for additional MH-47G aircraft. In terms of CH-47F Block II, Boeing is ramping up production to meet the Army’s rapid-fielding ambitions. Six Block IIs were delivered last year, and Boeing received a contract award for nine more in September 2025, with another six orders since then, for a total of 24 under contract. McBryan confirmed that, as of today, three aircraft are in production, with two of those in final assembly.

“We expect to deliver one of those aircraft towards the end of this year,” McBryan said. The total U.S. Army Block II requirement is still to be determined.

In terms of international orders, the first deliveries for new orders from Egypt, South Korea, and the United Kingdom are expected this year. Production of the first German CH-47F is also underway, with expected delivery in 2027.

Although it was first flown back in 1961, the Chinook appears to have a bright future ahead of it. With Boeing now focused on new capabilities, we may very well see Chinooks delivering launched effects and operating in uncrewed versions before too long.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com