Airbus drone swarming tests Primoco UAV

European aeronautics giant Airbus and Czech company Primoco UAV recently partnered on a series of surveillance flights designed to test how Airbus’ new teaming intelligence software can be used to manage a drone swarm in real time. The tests were conducted at Písek-Krašovice airport using Primoco’s medium-sized UAVs. 

In the first test, operators at the Airbus ground station sent two Primoco One 150 UAVs to a target zone. Airbus’ teaming intelligence software then assigned each of the UAVs its own surveillance area. Using AI-based automatic target recognition (ATR) software by Airbus, both aircraft were able to detect threats simultaneously. One of the uncrewed aircraft then localised a simulated threat and sent the geodata of the opposing air defense system to the ground station.

In the second test, the drones were split up and given independent tasks. One UAV was responsible for monitoring the target area and detecting threats with Airbus’ AI-based ATR. The other loitered in the background on standby. Once the first UAV detected an enemy threat, it used the teaming software to task the second UAV to identify the threat (an enemy air defense system) with Airbus’ AI-based ATR and report it to the operators at the ground station. Meanwhile, the first UAV continued monitoring the area for suspected threats.

In the demonstration, Airbus and Primoco also successfully tested the integration of third-party applications other than Airbus’ own ATR, showing how the swarming program is platform agnostic and can be integrated into a wide range of platforms. 

Next steps for the partnership include further maturing its teaming intelligence software as a product that can be installed on any fixed-wing, rotary-wing, crewed or uncrewed aircraft available on the market while also including other third party software automated target recognition. While the initial focus of these tests were on military applications, the developers hope third-party app integration could bring the powerful drone management capabilities to spaces like infrastructure inspection.

More information on Airbus and Primoco’s partnership is available here.

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