https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020...nition-swarms/
US Air Force gears up for first flight test of Golden Horde munition swarms
......Golden Horde is one of the three technology development efforts chosen by the Air Force in 2019 as a “Vanguard program” — a high-priority prototyping and experimentation initiative that the service earmarked as potentially groundbreaking. Along with its fellow Vanguards — the loyal wingman drone
known as Skyborg and
Navigation Technology Satellite-3, an experimental
satellite that would augment GPS — the Air Force hopes to speed Golden Horde toward either fielding or failure.
AFRL is working on two networked munitions for Golden Horde: the Collaborative Small Diameter Bomb I (CSDB-1) and the Collaborative Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (CMALD). Both involve taking munitions currently in production — the laser-guided version of Boeing’s Small Diameter Bomb I and Raytheon’s Miniature Air-Launched Decoy — and then outfitting them with new radios that allow the weapons to exchange information, and equipping them with new processors for additional computing power, said Norma Taylor, the program manager for Golden Horde.
That in turn enables a massive software upgrade known as the “autonomy module,” a playbook of algorithms that tell the weapon how to respond to specific changes on the battlefield, whether that means the sighting of a new threat or the destruction of some of the collaborative weapons.....
AFRL is on track to begin F-16 fighter jet flight tests with the CSDB-1 this fall and winter, with similar tests of the B-52 bomber carrying the CMALD planned for summer 2021, Hasse said.......
“[Mission planners] would give information to the weapon on an appropriate engagement zone, where it would be considered proper for the weapon to engage targets … and they would give the weapons information on known targets in that zone,” she said. “But if they have some idea that there might be other targets out there that they don’t know, they will give the weapon some information in terms of priorities, so that if you come across a higher-priority target that’s in the authorized engagement zone, then you have permission to change your assignment.”
Eventually, AFRL will use the CSDB-1 and CMALD together in an integrated swarm in a more complex scenario, currently scheduled around 2022, Taylor said....