DARPA: "Volleys" of UASs Could Be Launched, Retrieved Mid-Air

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Phase 1 contracts for its Gremlins program, which seeks to develop technologies and systems enabling aircraft to launch volleys of low-cost, reusable unmanned air systems (UASs) and safely and reliably retrieve them in mid-air.

The agency says such systems, or “gremlins,” would be deployed with a mixture of mission payloads capable of carrying out a variety of activities in a coordinated manner, providing U.S. forces with improved operational flexibility at a lower cost than is possible with conventional, "monolithic" platforms.

The Phase 1 contracts have been awarded to four teams whose proposals cover a range of technical approaches to this mission and are led by Composite Engineering (Roseville, California), Dynetics (Huntsville, Alabama), General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (San Diego, California) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (Dallas, Texas).

Phase 1 of the Gremlins program is designed to pave the way for a proof-of-concept flight demonstration that would validate an air-recovery concept of multiple gremlins, DARPA says. With that goal in mind, the technical areas to be explored include:

· Launch and recovery techniques, as well as equipment and aircraft integration concepts;

· Low-cost, limited-life airframe designs that leverage existing technology and require only modest modifications to current aircraft; and

· High-fidelity analysis, precision digital flight control, relative navigation and station keeping.

Ultimately, the program envisions launching groups of UASs from existing large aircraft such as bombers or transport aircraft—as well as from fighters and other small, fixed-wing platforms—while those planes are out of range of adversary defenses. When the gremlins complete their mission, a C-130 transport aircraft would retrieve them in the air and carry them home, where ground crews would prepare them for their next use within 24 hours.

The gremlins’ expected lifetime of about 20 uses could provide significant cost advantages over expendable systems by reducing payload and airframe costs and by having lower mission and maintenance costs than conventional platforms, which are designed to operate for decades, DARPA says.