During a media day for the Air Force last Wednesday, Secretary Heather Wilson revealed that the organization is keen on gathering as much drone swarm data and performance as possible, which is why a “Thunderdrone” drone battle event will take place for those exact purposes this fall. From September 5 through November 3, the event will be hosted by SOFWERX in a “state-of-the-art 7,000 square-foot indoor drone test range for drone experimentation, prototyping, and testing,” as the organization words it.
Groups like the U.S. Army, Air Force, the Navy, and the Department of Defense (DoD) are looking toward drone companies for tomorrow’s technology in order to prepare future strategies today. The Drive recently reported on the ‘Tikad’ drone—that’s just one way of thinking when it comes to drones in the battlefield. Gathering data to properly analyze swarms of drones and their performances is certainly another important angle, and one the U.S. Navy is keen on getting ahead of. Let's have a look at the schedule, as well as what the primary focuses of this event will be.
According to DoDBuzz, SOFWERX is a collaboration between U.S. Special Operations Command and the Doolittle Institute—a Tampa-based innovation office that serves to provide the DoD with connections to private companies in the business of making war or military strategy more efficient.
The Thunderdrone event will host defense organizations, industry companies, and academic groups in order to test “drones (sea, land, air, and space), tactical swarms, payloads (kinetic/non-kinetic), and their associated data science applications for the Special Operations community," the website states.
If you want to get involved, head on over to SOFWERX’s Thunderdrone page to learn more and sign up, as well as take a look at the informative press release. Who knows, you might just get funded if you participate and impress the right people, as SOFWERX claims it’ll “pick and fund a select few technologies for further development following” the event.