One signal

Update

What changed

Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council says the next stage of its autonomous drone-swarm project will involve hardware-in-the-loop testing, prototype integration and flight trials over real maritime areas. The council’s stated aim is to assess reliability in different sea and weather conditions, a more demanding test than keeping a simulation tidy.

Tom’s Hardware, citing the South China Morning Post, reports that the system is intended to let different types of drone coordinate, divide tasks and plan routes for maritime surveillance. The project is also working on leader-follower formations, obstacle avoidance and keeping aircraft at least 100 feet apart in three-dimensional space.

The report says Taiwan’s Coast Guard has received a V-BAT drone made by Shield AI. It can take off vertically from a ship and has a reported endurance of more than 12 hours.

Sources and evidence

• Taiwan working on autonomous drone swarms to counter China’s increasingly aggressive grey-zone military tactics — island has already completed flight simulations, now working towar: Tom’s Hardware reports that Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council plans hardware-in-the-loop testing, prototype integration and maritime flight trials for its autonomous drone-swarm project, and that Taiwan’s Coast Guard has received a Shield AI V-BAT with more than 12 hours of reported endurance.

Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.