ADONIS: Air-Deployable Operationally Networked Intelligent Swarm

ADONIS will design, build, and air-deploy by tube-launch, a swarm of three Group 1 fixed-wing UAVs with fully networked, collaborative, and autonomous (NCA) capabilities allowing them to swarm and execute tactical tasking assigned while on the ‘mothership’ aircraft. NCA airborne systems have tremendous application both militarily, in attritable ISR, swarm aerial assault, wide-area CSAR, etc. as well as in civilian mission sets such as hurricane and storm profiling, wildland fire suppression, crop monitoring, and disaster response. ADONIS aims to demonstrate a rapidly deployable, WOSA-compliant, end-to-end, hardware/software NCA solution in a live flight test.Peer competition and the reemergence of high-lethality A2AD systems is presenting strategic challenges to USAF Air Supremacy operations. Next Generation munitions and sensors will need to be employed at range, using LO, mass, novel deployment methods, and intelligent collaboration 'at the edge' to achieve mission success: Networked Collaborative Autonomous munitions and swarms are two approaches to deploying masses of smart weapons into the Battlespace. These weapons must be simple to operate, forward and/or air-deployable and trustworthy in autonomy. The ADONIS program aims to address all of these challenges. Identified problem areas, that are addressed through ADONIS, include:“Overwhelm adversaries with complexity, unpredictability, & numbers through a collaborative & autonomous network of systems and effects” USAF 2030 Science & Technology StrategyFor autonomous aircraft to maintain air superiority, reliable ‘out the box’ weapons systems must be available, rapidly configurable, and deployed en masse close to the AOR. ADONIS provides an air-deployed, tube-launched, autonomous swarming system for just such a mission set.“KC-135 units will coordinate to provide a conceptual means of air delivering 100 off-the-shelf size and type UAVs from a single aircraft” Gen M. A. Minihan, CC AMCThe ADONIS program combines a COTS fixed-wing, tube-launched, Group 1 UAS (the Black Swift s0) and a swarm tasking, management and control system (Air Commons®) with cutting edge programable autonomy (AXIS). Rapid KC-135/C-130/C-17 tasking, and air-deployment of an autonomous swarm will be demonstrated.“Test new (or improved) technologies with the potential to fill gaps, both spatially and temporally, in the existing suite of airborne measurements in mature hurricanes.”NOAA Intensity Forecasting Experiment (IFEX)National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contracted with Black Swift Technologies (BST) to design, build, and air-deploy from an Orion P3 tube-launcher, a hurricane sensing sUAS: the BST s0 UAV. Increasing the number of flights per storm greatly increases the temporal and spatial sampling, allowing for improved models and forecasts. ADONIS gives these Hurricane and Wildland Fire first responders the capability to predict track and intensity in real time.