Overview
- The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering tapped Shield AI to integrate its Hivemind autonomy software onto the LUCAS low-cost one-way attack drone, the agencies and company announced on May 19.
- Shield AI says Hivemind will act as an ‘‘AI pilot’’ that lets groups of drones sense, reroute, avoid obstacles, and adapt to changing conditions without continuous human input while leaving final strike authority to a human operator.
- The company and Pentagon research office plan an operational demonstration this fall in which a single operator will command a coordinated swarm of Hivemind-enabled LUCAS drones.
- LUCAS is a U.S. copy of the Iranian Shahed-136 design that costs roughly $35,000 per airframe, has been used in recent CENTCOM operations, and is intended to be produced and deployed in large numbers as an "attritable" weapon.
- The move fits inside a wider Defense Autonomous Warfare Group effort to scale affordable, networked drones and autonomy development and supports DoD budget plans that target roughly $55 billion for drone and autonomy programs in fiscal 2027.