Perdix drones are the main subject of an experimental project conducted by the Strategic Capabilities Office of the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

which aims to develop autonomous micro-drones to be used for unmanned aerial surveillance.

Origin

The idea of intelligent micro-drones which could communicate with each other was pioneered by a group of students studying at the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 2011. They were subsequently modified for military use in 2013 under the direction of the

Strategic Capabilities Office. The drone system was named after the character in Greek mythology of the same name.

Autonomy

Each individual drone is not controlled in itself but instead it shares a collective, distributed "brain," travelling in leaderless "swarms," members of which can adapt to changes in drone numbers and remain co-ordinated with their counterparts. Having multiple micro-drones carrying out surveillance is tactically advantageous to simply having one large drone because it is easier for the micro-drones to dodge

air defense systems Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

. The drones have the ability to collectively determine whether they have completed a mission, leading some commentators to argue that Perdix drones are

artificially intelligent Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animal cognition, animals and human intelligence, humans. Example tasks in ...

Testing

The first operational test of the militarized Perdix drones was conducted by the

U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) is the Air Force's advanced flight training school that trains experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test flight officer, navigators to carry out tests and evaluations of new ...

in September 2014 over Edwards Air Force Base. The drones were placed in the flare canisters of F-16 Fighting Falcon and deployed to operate at a lower altitude. A year later, in September 2015, 90 Perdix missions were flown over

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

to test maritime surveillance capabilities. In October 2016, 103 Perdix drones were dropped from three

F/A-18 Super Hornet The Boeing F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet are twin-engine, carrier-capable, multirole fighter aircraft variants based on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet. The F/A-18E single-seat and F/A-18F tandem-seat variants are larger and more a ...

fighter jets in a joint effort with the US Naval Air Systems Command over their base at China Lake, California. As with earlier tests, the drones were packed into flare canisters for the jets to eject. The test was a success and elicited significant media coverage when announced on 9 January 2017. These tests conclude that the drones can be safely launched at a speed of Mach 0.6 and in temperatures as low as . Photographers shooting a feature of the drones for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

television program 60 Minutes reportedly almost abandoned attempts to film the drones as their size and speed made getting a focussed image difficult.

Design

Perdix drones have two sets of

wings A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expre ...

which are straddled by a plastic body containing a lithium battery and a small camera. Propulsion is provided by a propeller at the rear.

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

is used to create Perdix drones' bodies while the onboard software can be updated to enable refinements and improvements to be made without having to manufacture a new drone. The Perdix software is currently in its sixth generation and the Department of Defense aims to have the capability to produce the drones in batches of 1,000 in the near future.

Specifications

The published specifications of Perdix drones are listed below.

General characteristics

* Length: 6.5 inches / 165mm *

Wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...

: 11.8 inches / 300mm * Weight: 290 grams * Propeller diameter: 2.6 inches / 66mm

Performance

* Maximum speed: 70 mph / 113 km/h *

Endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from an ...

: 20 minutes

References

{{reflist Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States Micro air vehicles 3D printed objects