Project ARES (Advanced Reconfigurable & Evolving Swarm)

This STTR Phase II effort advances a modular autonomy substrate enabling small unmanned systems to operate cooperatively in electronically contested and GPS-denied environments. ARES integrates adaptive policy learning, secure multi-sensor fusion, and lightweight edge inference to support decentralized mission execution without reliance on persistent connectivity or centralized control. The system is engineered for low-SWaP platforms and is designed to dynamically adjust behavior in response to mission shifts, environmental uncertainty, and RF interference. ARES directly supports Department of the Air Force objectives in resilient autonomy, electromagnetic spectrum operations, and agile decision-making at the tactical edge.