DROIDISH: Collaborative Autonomous Vehicle Language

The deployment of collaborative autonomous munitions & unmanned systems is the next phase of the DoD’s entry into the Information Age with programs such as Golden Horde, a USAF Vanguard program, working to integrate software-defined datalink radios and collaborative capabilities into legacy weapons systems. DROIDISH™ is designed to integrate directly into this program and to demonstrate the utility and ubiquity of a standardized vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) language. The DROIDISH™ team comprises of some of the lead V2V practitioners in the civilian standards world, notably IEEE and ASTM. Previous UMEX programs, including the AFWERX Phase I OXYGEN project, have aimed to set and test the range, data rates, RSSI and SNR standards for IEEE, and the need for a ‘common’ language has been the source of ongoing discussions. DROIDISH™ aims to build that standard common language and provide a framework for its adoption across the spectrum of civil and military roles. UMEX has been working with AFLCMC’s Emerging Technologies Branch (EBZ) to develop a swarming munitions planning, and mission management program called Air Commons™ - Swarm (Phase II Contract # FA8656-21-C-0109). DROIDISH™ has tremendous potential in allowing these assets to collaborate on complex mission types, involving heterogenous payloads and distinct sortie profiles. UMEX’s intent is to ‘fold’ the developing DROIDISH™ language capabilities into AC-Swarm and other associated programs as the maturity level allows. The OXYGEN program culminated with a three-ship UAS ‘Bumper Cars’ flight test called GOLD 6 (see below). From that work, the need to expand the V2V and V2I communications capability and language dictionary became apparent. A GOLD 7 flight was designed and introduced to allow for V2V and V2I communications to be run concurrently, with AES and DTLS encryption operating. Another EBZ program, the Weapons Open Communications Architecture (WOCA), has some strong connectivity to the DROIDISH™ efforts and an outreach has already commenced with IS4S, the Government partner, to tie the projects where appropriate. The UMEX team plans to schedule a DROIDISH™ and WOCA ‘gladiatorial’ contest within the AFRL Colosseum simulation test system when both programs are suitably matured. It is one goal of the DROIDISH™ project to obtain designation as an “e-Program” within the Digital Transformation efforts at the Armament Directorate. AC-Swarm is attempting this process at the current time and the desire is to include DROIDISH™ in these USAF efforts to modernize weapon system procurement.